


Switched

by dvs



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Bucky Barnes is a resilient badass, Bucky Barnes-centric, M/M, Oh steeb, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-05-08 01:17:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14683410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dvs/pseuds/dvs
Summary: Bucky Barnes wakes up seventy years in the future, and everything is a few degrees off from where it should be.





	1. Chapter 1

Bucky's eyes open. His gaze slowly slides across the expanse of a perfect white ceiling. As a rule, Bucky has an innate distrust of things too perfect. He sits up slowly, turning to arch a brow at the radio. Wrong, he thinks, that is wrong. The sounds outside the window are wrong. The smell and taste of the air is wrong. The walls and floor are vibrating in a way Bucky's body doesn't recognise. This place is all wrong. Zola, he thinks, trying to get into his mind again, but Zola had no time for intricate deception. He was happy enough with his crude methods of detention and experimentation. This is something more sophisticated. Something advanced.

When a perfectly preened nurse walks in, smiles and opens her mouth to speak, Bucky stands up, cutting her off straight away. “Not that I don't appreciate waking up to a pretty face, but how about we skip the small talk, and you take me to the great and powerful Oz?”

“I know-” she starts.

Bucky takes a step forward and she doesn't tense or flinch. Bucky murmurs, more to himself than her, “Definitely. Not. In Kansas anymore.”

She launches into explanation, lying just beautifully. Bucky gives her a reprimanding look, accompanied by a knowing smirk. Then he takes matters into his own hands. How is he to know that under a minute he'll be standing in a new world filled with bright and alien things, a one-eyed man called Fury telling him he's been asleep for seventy years?

“You gonna be okay?” Fury asks him when he looks around in stunned silence, realising that everything he knows is gone.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, pushing that reliable smirk to the surface. “It's not like I had any plans.”

*

He spends two weeks acclimatising. That’s what they call it, the SHIELD brains, acclimatising. As if a man can lose everything he knows and loves and just get used to it. As if loss didn’t cut off the blood to a piece of his heart, making it shrivel and die, making everything just that tiny bit harder, like breathing, walking, waking, and even sleeping. _Acclimatising_ , he thinks bitterly, reaching for a cigarette.

“Sir. You can’t smoke that in here.”

The cigarette disappointedly dangles from where it’s stuck to the underside of his top lip, nestled against the top of his bottom lip. Bucky nods at the red-faced woman behind the diner counter, holding up a hand in silent apology. He keeps forgetting it’s almost impossible to smoke anywhere in New York other than inside his apartment. He replaces the unsmoked cigarette back in its pack, turning the box over in his hand to read the warnings. He frowns, wondering how many years ago they figured out sucking on burning tobacco was probably a bad idea.

He tucks the pack away and takes a sip of his black coffee, going back to eyeing the diner around him. It’s ten in the morning and it’s pretty quiet. Of the people in the diner, his eyes fall on two women at a small table, laughing and quietly talking over a photograph on a phone. Bucky pins them down as both being of Japanese origin. He could be wrong, but that’s his first guess. By the window is a fella on his own, holding his phone in both hands, his deep brown eyes fixed on the screen. Bucky thinks he looks a little like Gabe, especially when Gabe used to get mad about something, that same intense look in his eyes.

Bucky looks at the woman three seats away from him, engrossed in her book. She has dark brown skin, and large almond shaped eyes lined with black. Her hair is a soft halo of black, and the profile of her face is all soft curves: down the bridge of her nose and the round of its tip, the concentrated pout of her mouth, and the small jut of her chin. She’s wearing a long black sweater that shows one bare nut brown shoulder, with dark jeans that disappear into chunky black boots. Bucky scowls and then smiles at the boots that might be better suited in a trench.

What Bucky doesn’t try to think about is whether Gabe was one of those people turned away from a diner, a hospital, kicked off a bus. Those things happened, he’s read about it. It happened to Americans who fought in the war. They came home, and they weren’t allowed to sit at the same counter as a white man. In another time, one that Bucky has missed completely, the woman with the soft halo of hair can’t sit at someone’s counter. They would turn her away. So what was the point of war? Whose freedoms had he been fighting for? The lynchers? The mobs?

The sound of bullets and bombs rattles in his head, and something like the sound of a siren floods his mind for a moment. The handle of his cup breaks in his hand. Multiple sets of eyes in the diner turn to him as he swallows and just looks ahead, seeing his skewed reflection on the metal of a coffee machine. Acclimatise, they say, as if the past is passive enough to just fade away.

*

Bucky eyes the target and mechanically empties another clip. At this point, the target is just a hole where the target used to be a while back. The force of every bullet that leaves the gun slams a memory out of his mind, knocking it away from constant replay. Each bullet pierces something Bucky wished he didn't remember; Steve falling from the train into a snowy white abyss, Agent Carter's determined expression as she waited for Bucky to cast off his self-loathing, Bucky's last dance with Schmidt, and their final dive into the ice below. Bucky didn't have Steve's strength, but it didn't mean he couldn't try to find a way to finish Schmidt. Bucky brings down his gun, morosely looking ahead at the dead target. He would reach for another clip, but he catches a dark shadow in the corner of his eye, turning to find Fury watching him.

His eyes flick to a set of ignored goggles and ear protectors. “They give you those for a reason.”

Bucky looks around the empty shooting range, indicating he needs no protection; the sound of his bullets hitting the mark is music to his ears. Fury seems to catch on, not pushing this particular topics.

“Trouble sleeping?”

Bucky reaches back for a clip, going ahead and changing an empty for a full. “You tell me.”

“Things on my mind, Captain,” Fury answers.

“Sergeant,” Bucky corrects.

“No. I definitely mean Captain,” Fury says.

Bucky's mouth twists into an unsure smile. “You got the wrong Cap, Colonel. I'm not the stars and stripes wearing hero you're looking for.”

“That didn't stop you from taking up the shield and taking on Hydra.” Fury pushes away from the wall and hands Bucky a file. He opens it and recognises the Tesseract immediately. “War's not over, Sergeant. You're still needed.”

Bucky hands back the file. “War is never over, Colonel.”

He turns his back on Fury, ready to fire another round of angry bullets. Fury says, “There was something else I wanted to tell you. Your request's been authorised. You get ten minutes, when you want it.”

Bucky turns slowly, blinking at Fury. The guy's an underhanded sneak. Still, Bucky says, “Now.”

Fury shrugs. “It's a good a time as any.”

Now doesn't turn out to be exactly now. It turns out to be a car ride, followed by a chopper and another drive to an undisclosed location, hidden from view behind the blacked out windows of a SUV, though Bucky's body feels like it can pinpoint where he is, and how far he is from where he was picked up. After a short walk, security checks and an elevator ride down into what feels like the centre of the Earth, Bucky is finally brought to his final destination. He walks into a large black room with what appears to be a glass holding cell in the middle, cylindrical and tinted green.

In it sits a man with a grinning red skeletal, face. He laughs, his voice deep, distorted by the speakers through which it's being channelled. “So you survived. Not as weak as I thought after all. Still...far from the superior strength of your friend.”

Bucky's mouth twitches in a bitter-sweet smile. “I'm not the one inside a glass box.”

“No.” Schmidt smiles. “But when we meet again, you will be the one who shatters like glass.”

“We're meeting right now,” Bucky says calmly.

Schmidt looks around his cell, looking amused. “You and I, Captain, will always meet on uneven ground. You stand there gloating because I am imprisoned. But... I will not be caged for long, and when I walk free...one hopes you will finally breath your last.”

Bucky moves towards the cell, his footfalls echoing throughout the room, the only other sound coming from Schmidt's cell. He stops in front of it, taking a good look at Schmidt. “One day, we're going to finish what we started.”

Bucky turns away from the cell, stalking off towards the door. Of course, Schmidt can't let him leave without the last word, stopping Bucky in his tracks. “You yearn to avenge the death of Captain America. How I wish he had died by my hands.”

Bucky's body stiffens, heart skipping a beat, a chill whipping across his shoulders, gone before Bucky can even fully register it. Somehow he makes his feet move, taking him out into the corridor where Fury is waiting for him.

“You all done?” Fury asks, receiving a nod. “What now?”

Bucky gives Fury a firm look. “So...someone's got the cube. What do you need from me?”

*

When Steve died, all that was left of him was his shield. Bucky watched him fall, screaming out his name, and then clung to the side of the train, watching the chasm below moving away, Steve's broken body lost somewhere below. He had climbed back into the train with leaden limbs, falling to his knees once he stepped inside, the shield lying abandoned in front of him. He lifted it up with both hands, as if he was holding something sacred - what could be more sacred than the weapon of a fallen soldier? He brought it back with him, and they all knew why it was in his hands.

This same shield was found buried with Bucky, as if it was awaiting reunion with its owner in the afterlife, or maybe protecting him against his frozen enemy. Bucky lifts it and looks at it again, feeling as if he's back on that train. They tell him he's been asleep for seventy years, but for Bucky it's only been weeks since he lost Steve. He's still in mourning, and he feels like an imposter being asked to carry this mantel. His shoulders are not broad enough, his heart nowhere as big as Steve's.

But I'll do it, he tells himself, pulling on his uniform, a suit of inky blue that borders on black, a silver star smack bang in the middle of his chest. The colours that don't represent liberty and freedom as much as they represent what Bucky has lost, what he tries to honour with every action. Bucky's not fighting for his country anymore, he's fighting for everything Steve believed in. More so, he's fighting for that little guy from Brooklyn who never backed down from a fight. Bucky pulls down his cowl and lifts up his shield, slowly turning to look in the mirror. It's strange, but he doesn't see himself at all. He sees Captain America.

*

“So, I heard you were Captain America for about five minutes before you crashed and froze.” Bucky smiles, thoroughly amused. Folding his arms across his chest, he turns and blinks at Tony Stark, who somehow manages to shrug in that armour of his. “It's what I heard.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, “first of all, it was a controlled crash, to save lives. Second of all, I was Captain America for three whole days before I crashed and froze. What do they teach you kids in school anyway?”

Tony looks both surprised and pleased. Bucky shakes his head and smirks. Above them, thunder strikes, and their prisoner in the small plane looks worried. Bucky asks him, “What’s the matter, pal? Scared of a little thunder?”

The man before them, a god apparently, looks up. He's jittery and pale, almost like an apparition. Something about him sets Bucky's teeth on edge, especially when he looks at Bucky for far too long. “No, but I'm not overly fond of what follows.”

What follows is no more insane than a man peeling off his face to reveal a red skull. Loki is taken from the plane by a blond-haired muscle-man and Tony follows them, flying off in his red suit of armour. Bucky blows out a breath and tries to think about exactly what he's supposed to do in this situation, looking around the plane cabin.

“Smartass. Worse than his old man,” Bucky grouses, unwillingly impressed by that Stark flare, Tony's last words still bouncing around his head. Bucky looks around the cabin for options and ideas, asking Natasha, “So. You got any plans for the weekend. I'm kind of new in town-”

“Really? This is what we're talking about right now?” Natasha asks, her voice flat and bland, hitting him pretty low and hard. Bucky gives her a shameless shrug. She smirks and shakes her head. “I'm calling for backup.”

“Bit of an overreaction. I can take no for an answer,” Bucky says with a smile. Natasha shakes her head, amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth. Bucky grins and lazily turns away, his decision made. He picks up a parachute, buckling in, and picking up his trusty shield.

“I'd sit this one out, Captain,” Natasha says. “They come from legend, they're basically gods.”

Bucky snorts, striding away. “Can't say I was ever much of a god-fearing guy.”

With that, he jumps from the plane. If the parachute fails, at least Steve’s shield will catch what's left of him.

*

They’re being called Avengers, him, Stark, Natasha, Thor, Clint and Banner. Bucky’s not sure they’ve done much avenging. What he does know is, that today’s heroes are tomorrow’s problems. Today the city is praising the Avengers for beating the Chitauri. Tomorrow they’ll be asking what gives the Avengers the right to cause chaos in the name of their avenging. Just a matter of time, Bucky thinks as he spots a reporter, and easily ducks out of sight and into a quiet alley.

He grins, slowing into a saunter as he spots Natasha leaning against a wall. She gives him a look that could mean she’s already bored of looking at him, or she any second now he might finally pique her interest. Bucky stands in front of her, the shield hanging heavy on his arm. He realises he’d rather have her looking at her without this suit and shield, without this persona. But, here they are.

The corner of Natasha’s mouth twitches up, a tick in a box. “You drink?”

Bucky smiles at her and answers, “Like a fish.”


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky watches the shield fall and darts towards it, his gun at the ready. But Steve, always the damn martyr, lunges towards Bucky, shoving him away. In the blink of an eye, he's been blown out of the train and left clinging to the side. Bucky rushes out as quick as possible, reaching for Steve. The railing breaks off, and Steve looks as though he knows what's about to happen. And then he's gone, falling away, whilst all Bucky can do is cling to the side of the train and scream in rage.

“Bad dream?” Natasha asks, a moment after Bucky sits up, arm reaching out and finding nothing, the taste of a name on his tongue.

Bucky looks into the dark, his fingers curling, feeling the skin of his face stinging. He runs a hand over his face, wiping away the wetness. “Yeah.”

“Probably the Chinese food.”

Bucky frowns and then smiles, turning his head to look down at her lying there next to him. He can see the curve of her mouth illuminated by the moonlight. “Probably.”

Natasha sighs, sounding thoughtful. He watches her push away the covers before sitting up and in one fluid motion moving to straddle his lap, her hands light on his shoulders, the backs of her thighs soft and warm on the top of his. Bucky places his hands on her hips. She looks even paler in the dark, her body catching the light of the moon and reflecting it back at Bucky. Bucky leans in close and kisses her slowly, toying with her bottom lip, coaxing her smirking mouth open. When his palms settle on her thighs, she brings her hands down to link fingers with him, pliant and resistant all at the same time.

“We about to spar?” Bucky whispers against her lips with an amused smile.

She lets out a huff, her breath warm on his face, her mouth smiling against his before she kisses it. What ensues is a play-fight more than any kind of sparring, both of them tussling with each other between gasps and breathy laughter, until Bucky lands on his back with a sigh, Natasha slowly working him to full hardness before taking him into her own body, riding him slowly, mistress of her own pleasure. Bucky becomes lost in watching her. She reaches for his hands, pulling at them until he sits up and holds her close, both of them chasing away each other's nightmares.

*

Seventy years is a long time to be asleep. Long enough for your whole world to disappear, taking with it all the people you once knew. Bucky’s list of names delivers him either surviving family of the deceased, or grave stones in silent cemeteries. But there’s one stubborn name on his list, still hanging on in a hospital bed. Bucky goes to meet him, watching clouded eyes widen in surprise, and life momentarily returning to the tired body of an old man.

Bucky asks tentatively, “Washington Jones?”

“Barnes,” Jones whispers, before he starts to laugh, the laugh tapering into a cough. When he’s settled again, he’s smiling, and Bucky can see the young soldier he knew, past the passage of time that has built layers on his face. “Look at you, Barnes.”

Bucky sits down on the edge of the bed and smiles. “How you doing, Jones?”

“Better now that I’ve seen you,” Jones says, generous as ever. “I saw Captain America, fighting with the Avengers. Couldn’t believe my eyes.”

“Well, believe it,” Bucky says with a smile. Jones shakes his head, grinning. “So, you gonna tell me about your family or what? What’s the news? Kids, grand-kids? Ex-wives? There’s got to be at least two.”

Jones laughs hard enough to bring on a coughing fit, and then tells Bucky the whole story. Bucky already knows some of the story, the unhappy part which Jones doesn’t mention. The part where Jones came back from war and his heroics were washed over in favour of ridiculing him, his skin too dark for him to be held up as a hero. Jones says nothing about any of that. He only talks about everything good in his life, the love, the happiness. A hero to the end, Bucky thinks when he leaves Jones to rest.

The hospital is large and somehow he ends up outside a session for war veterans, the conversation inside floating into the corridor. He meets Sam Wilson whilst he’s skulking out in the corridor, and Sam approaches him about the flyer in his hand, going straight into what’s a great remedy for better sleep. Turns out Sam did some time in the field too, and there’s a reason he wants to help other war vets. Sam also doesn’t seem to give a shit that Bucky is Captain America, or that he knew the real Captain America, or that he’s a walking talking piece of history. Sam’s teasing and friendly manner stirs something in Bucky that briefly calms a constant storm that never seems to stop spinning in his chest.

“Young people today,” Bucky says in response to Sam’s teasing, “got no respect.”

Sam narrows his eyes at Bucky and says, “Let me ask you something. A two year old gets frozen for seventy years and wakes up. Is he still a two year old, or an old man?”

Bucky stares at Sam for a moment, before replying with a smile, “You calling me a baby?”

“I'm saying you've got a way to go before you get to play the age and wisdom card, baby,” Sam says with a huge grin, slapping Bucky on the arm.

Sam reminds Bucky of a camaraderie he hasn't quite found with the Avengers yet, and hasn’t known since the war. Sam understands war, he knows about loss. Like Bucky, he's a soldier, and to Bucky's relief, he sees past suit and shield. Somehow he sees past the talk and bravado and it comes as a surprise to Bucky how much he needs that; to be treated like a man, and not a hero.

*

It’s no surprise that when the shit hits the fan, and he and Natasha need to lay low, Sam is the obvious choice. Fury’s dead, killed by a midnight assassin, someone who outran Bucky before effortlessly catching the shield and throwing it right back at him. With Fury gone, Bucky has a target on his head as SHIELD enemy number one, with Natasha targeted right at his side. They both try to dig up dirt on why Fury is dead, where this assassin has emerged from, and in the process end up almost being blown to bits. With no one to trust, Bucky drags Natasha with him to Sam Wilson’s home, greeting him with, “Everyone we know is trying to kill us.”

Wilson checks the perimeter with a quick look, telling them both, “Not everyone.”

That night, Bucky plays the rooftop confrontation over and over in his mind. The assassin had twisted around, easily catching the shield, pinning Bucky with an ice cold gaze, the rest of his face hidden by a mask, under the shadow of a hood. He threw the shield back as if he owned the thing. Bucky can still feel the impact in the palms of his hands, the force of its flight. The Winter Soldier, the name by which Natasha describes him, moves like a machine, mechanical and reactive, just like that arm of his. Humans have weaknesses, Bucky thinks, machines have to be turned off.

“You okay, man?”

Bucky watches the street. No one’s watching them, and no one followed them. For now they’re all safe. Even so...there goes that storm in his chest again. “We need to be careful tomorrow. I got a real bad feeling about this.”

“Don’t worry,” Sam says, slapping Bucky on the shoulder, before he takes a place at Bucky’s side. “I got your back.”

Bucky looks across at Sam, and storm calms for a moment. In that moment something else wells up inside him, something he’d rather not think about. He swallows, nodding at Sam. They both watch the street in silence.

*

That bad feeling. That’s his gut talking. Bucky’s never known it to tell a lie. It feels like dread in his chest, a wire in his mind. It used to make him worry that his hands might start shaking, that he wouldn’t be able to take a shot. It was not a feeling to be ignored until it went away.

It does goes away. It goes away after he sees the face of the Winter Soldier.

Bucky has never had to fight this hard before. The soldier is strong, as strong as Bucky. Perhaps, just that bit stronger. The metal arm though, that’s what has Bucky outgunned. Bucky finds himself falling back on wiles, rather than just muscle power. Bucky can move quick, change tactics in the blink of an eye, and play real dirty. The soldier, though a fine tactician, is too focused on his objective.

Bucky manages the upper hand and a moment of distraction sends the assassin into the path of an oncoming car. He hits it hard, smashing its windscreen, rolling over the top and landing on the ground on both feet. All he loses in the process is his mask, which he doesn’t bother retrieving. Bucky is ready to go after him again when the soldier slowly turns around, unmasked face on display, leaving Bucky breathless.

That feeling of dread spikes painfully in his chest, and his whole body freezes where he stands, hit by blast of numbness. He can barely get the name off his tongue as he says, “Steve?”

Everything around Bucky feels as though it's been sucked into a vacuum, leaving only him and Steve. Steve who is supposed to be dead. How can this killing machine staring at Bucky be Steve? It's a trick, Bucky tries to convince himself, but even if his eyes are lying, that tight knot in his stomach knows the truth, and the truth is, while Bucky lay undisturbed in his icy sleep, Hydra took his friend, and did the unspeakable. They took Captain America and turned him into a cold-blooded killer.

The man before Bucky has black camouflage paint haphazardly smudged around icy blue eyes. His hair is shorn close to his head, a shadow of stubble on his scalp, and his face has that same gold dusting of hair, over square jaw and cheekbones. Everything that was soft and warm about Steve Rogers is missing, not just from his face, but as it turns out, from his mind too. He doesn't know Bucky. He doesn't even know himself, because he turns his head as if to seek out the person Bucky is talking to. Bucky can't think of anything more terrifying than Steve Rogers not knowing who he is, and for once, Bucky is stunned into complete silence.

When the grief and anger hit, he shouts loud enough to make his lungs hurt, “ _Steve_!”

*

So, Steve’s not dead. Turns out Fury isn’t dead either. Bucky’s not sure if he should be angry of happy. Angry, he decides. There are better ways of not being dead.

“That's not your friend in there,” Sam tells him gently as Bucky stands staring off into the distance. “I know you want to save him, but you might not have that option.”

Save him, Bucky thinks. He wants to laugh. His life is turning into a series of ways he's failed to save Steve over and over. He was going to look out for Steve, be there for him every step of the way, but instead... everything feels like its in ruins. He didn't just let Steve fall, he left him to be twisted into some kind of abomination. Even if Steve comes back from this, the damage is done.

“During the war,” Bucky says, his throat tight, “he came for me, even though they all thought I was dead, he found me. The people who sent me off to fight gave up on me, left me lying on a slab getting experimented on. Not him. He found me. Without Steve, they probably would have done to me what they've done to him. I have to save him, Sam. I can’t fail him this time. I can’t.”

“Well, in that case I look forward to picking up the pieces of what's left of your ass after this,” Sam says with a sigh. Bucky has no smiles or humour left in him, so he nods at Sam, feeling grateful. Giving Bucky a careful look, Sam asks, “Now what?”

Bucky thinks back to the exhibit in the Smithsonian where next to Captain America stand his closest friends. That's what Steve needs right now, his friend. He needs to remember. “I need to get my uniform.”

When he puts the uniform on, he feels something unclench inside of him. This is who he is, this is his reality. Bucky Barnes, not Captain America. Sam arches a brow at Bucky when he sees the blue jacket, the dark pants and leather boots, a leather utility belt around Bucky's waist. “Works for me.”

Natasha smirks at him, looking him up and down. “I think I could get used to it.”

Bucky hooks the shield onto his arm and nods at Sam and Natasha. “Let's do this.”

*

After the serum, Steve had become the bigger and stronger of them both, unlike Bucky who had been made stronger in his own body. So it isn't a surprise that Bucky is getting the crap kicked out of him. His body has one bullet inside it and a few broken ribs, not to mention a knife wound. Hurting as he is, it hurts Bucky more that Steve has been turned into the kind of weapon he would have despised. It's jarring to see his friend aim a gun at him, slice through the air with a knife to get to him. It’s strange to see Steve aim his fists at him.

“You're Steve Rogers. You're Captain America! Try to remember.” Steve backhands Bucky hard, a wild look in his eyes as if he's a cornered animal looking for escape. “I know you're in there somewhere. I know you. I know you better than you know yourself.”

Steve backhands Bucky again, grimacing in pain afterwards, a bullet lodged in his flesh shoulder. Steve’s eyes are on the shield, which slips from Bucky and falls, all the way out of the Helicarrier. For a moment, both he and Steve are watching as it disappears, both of them frowning. Bucky stumbles back, shaking his head.

“I can’t fight you. You're my friend.”

Steve stares at him with bright eyes and then grabs Bucky around the waist and throws him down, slamming his fist into Bucky over and over. There is nothing efficient here, no clean aim to complete a mission and move on. Each blow is messy and filled with rage, Steve's face contorted with anger. There is something very human about this Hydra machine's assault. Bucky takes it. Maybe it's the least he owes Steve for every blow he's unknowingly landed on the friend he had once looked out for.

“It’s okay. I meant what I said,” Bucky manages to say, the world beginning to go grey at the edges. “I'm with you until the end of the line.”

Steve's fist stills where it's raised. He frowns at Bucky, a very human expression of horror flickering across his face. There he is, Bucky thinks fuzzily. There's Steve.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky wakes up feeling like shit. The only part of him that seems willing to move is his head, and even that hurts his neck. At his bedside is Sam, looking bruised and tired, his eyes on a magazine. Bucky manages to croak out, “Thank you. For picking up the pieces of my ass.”

Sam smiles, letting out a huff of laughter, and Bucky drifts back to sleep, feeling like he's sinking under murky water. He dreams of a metal hand reaching out towards him, pulling him towards the surface, waking to see his shield sitting in the corner of the room, as if it just has the power to materialise from wherever it’s lost. Something about seeing it soothes Bucky’s heart, the idea that what is lost can also be found.

*

It takes a week for him to heal. In that time Steve has disappeared, Fury goes off the grid, SHIELD undergoes a slow dissection, and Natasha hands a few bureaucrats their balls on a platter before deciding to take a Fury-like break.

“I need you here,” Bucky complains.

“Me too. I hate being the little spoon,” Sam tells Natasha.

Natasha rolls her eyes, throwing a file onto Bucky's lap, about the only thing not hurting right. “Try not to get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

“She's talking to you,” Sam says, handing Bucky the file. He swallows hard when he opens it, seeing a picture of Steve as he once was, and a picture of what's been done to him. It's a thick file, and Bucky already feels queasy at the sight of it. Sam gently asks him, “You okay, man?”

“Don't worry about me,” Bucky says, quietly.

“It’s kind of what we do,” Natasha says, the look in her eyes, the shape of her mouth, all melted-wax soft.

Bucky doesn't want her to disappear. Her and Sam, together they make him feel grounded. Quietly, he says, “I'm telling you, you’ll be bored.”

Natasha steps close to the bed, leaning down to gently kiss him on the cheek. When she pulls away, she's looking at the file. Returning her gaze to him, she says, “You’re not going to like what you find in there, James.”

Bucky nods, mouth clamped shut. Squeezing his wrist, and nodding to Sam, Natasha leaves, Bucky's eyes turning to the file. Sam tells him, “You don't have to read it right now.”

“I'm hurting as much as I'm ever going to,” Bucky says quietly, flipping open the file. “Now seems like the perfect time.”

The file documents it all, how Steve lost all his memories, but retained all of his fighting prowess and skills. All his strength. They took away the memories, and kept the skills, creating an obedient assassin. Even so, once in a while it seemed the man broke through the programming of the machine. He remembered. And when he remembered, they wiped his memories all over again. And again. And again.

“Bastards,” Sam mutters, reading through portions Bucky’s done with. Bucky nods, his eyes stuck on the page in his hand. Sam notices the look on his face and asks, “What?”

“He tried to leave,” Bucky says, passing Sam the page. “While he was on a mission. He got away, tried to figure things out. They brought him back. Doesn’t matter though. This proves what I always knew. He’s in there. They didn’t take all of him away.”

Sam's nodding. He leans back, arms folded across his chest, determined look on his face. “You've got a plan?”

“We're going go find him,” Bucky says stubbornly.

“Okay.” Sam says, reliable as ever. “That's not really a plan though, you know. It's more of a suicide pact. I’ve seen that guy fight.”

“I didn't say it was a good plan,” Bucky replies with a small but hopeful smile, just as the door to his room opens and Phil Coulson walks in with his bad news face. Bucky stops smiling. “Agent.”

“Actually... it's Acting Director. I have some news,” he says. He hesitates to go further, glancing in Sam's direction. Bucky doesn't say a word, and Sam resolutely stays where he is by Bucky's bed. Coulson nods and tells Bucky. “It's Schmidt. While we were preoccupied with recent events, Hydra insiders were orchestrating a scheme to break Schmidt out. He's gone. So is Loki’s sceptre.”

“Nice work,” Sam comments. Bucky says, “Please tell me Schmidt does not have the sceptre.”

Coulson’s mouth clamps down for a moment, before he says, “We can’t be sure.”

“Uh, if Hydra are behind this, I think we _can_ be sure?” Sam says.

Coulson doesn’t say anything to that. He nods politely, telling Bucky he’ll let him know if he has any more news. With that he’s gone. Sam’s sits back in his chair with a heavy sigh and looks at Bucky. “Now what?”

“We find Steve. We find the sceptre. We find that bastard Schmidt.”

Sam nods and very reasonably tells Bucky, “Again, that’s not really a plan. But I hear you.”

*

The search for Schmidt and Loki’s sceptre is Avengers priority number one, but half of Bucky’s mind is always fixed on finding Steve. He’s in Sokovia with the Avengers, but his thoughts are on whether any of the leads Sam is following have brought them closer to Steve. It’s months since the Helicarrier, and Steve has done what the Winter Soldier has always done: in the time it’s taken for the smoke to clear, he has become a ghost.

Bucky walks around the abandoned Sokovian castle, eyeing the innards of broken machinery that seem to have been left in the middle of being reconstructed and re-wired. It’s a wasted trip, Loki’s sceptre nowhere to be found, meaning there’s a possibility Schmidt has it. Bucky comes to a stop to just look at the place, wondering if there’s a difference between a place looking abandoned, and looking as if something is missing.

By the time they leave, the outpost is shut down, the authorities quick to move in, but not before Tony has filled the Quinjet with what he calls ‘items relevant to world-saving’. Thor pokes at a crate of small silver lumps, announcing in that ridiculously deep voice, “A box of metal.”

“A box of _vibranium_ ,” Bucky says, before aiming a questioning smile at Tony.

“What?” Tony says. “The Sokovians weren’t using it.”

“Right,” Bruce says, nodding. “They told you that?”

“To be fair,” Clint says, “pretty sure Hydra didn’t get that stuff legally, or from the Sokovians.”

Natasha opens her mouth to say something, and Tony points at her. “Possession. Nine tenths of the law.”

“Didn’t realise you were such an expert in Sokovian law,” Natasha says.

Thor turns in a circle, and points his hammer at Tony, declaring him, “Not. Worthy.”

*

Weeks after Sokovia, still no news. Bucky keeps reading and re-reading the file Natasha gave him. Everytime he reads it again, it’s as if someone is out there still doing those things to Steve. It’s as if Steve is still out there, doing what Hydra made him do. Bucky is as helpless as he was when Steve fell from a train to his death and twisted resurrection.

“You look intense,” Bruce says, walking into the communal living room, one hand in pocket, the other adjusting his glasses. “Something bothering you?”

“Not really,” Bucky lies.

Bruce smiles, nodding. “Guess it’s the kind of calm that comes with old age.”

Bucky laughs at that. “I guess it is.”

Bruce is peering out of the window, glasses in hand now. Bucky thinks a trick of the light is making him see tints of green where there are none. After a while Bruce says, “How’s the search going for Steve?”

Bucky looks down at a report from the last mission that’s lying unread on his lap. “It’s not easy to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

“He’s been through a lot. I guess he needs time to process. It’s not easy letting people see your open wounds.” Bucky nods, offering up a polite smile. Bruce offers an apologetic one in return. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to talk about this.”

“Tony told me you’re a crappy listener,” Bucky teases.

Bruce scrunches his face up in thought. “When Tony gets started, he can talk. I mean, _really_ talk _._ ”

Bucky grins. “It’s a family trait.”

“Maybe a good one,” Bruce says with a shrug. “Keeping it all in...probably not great for you.”

Bucky nods, eyeing Bruce closely. There’s definitely a tinge of green there. “What if you’re keeping something in to stop from hurting someone you care about?”

Bruce frowns, quiet for a moment. “There’s no guarantee they won’t get hurt anyway.”

Bucky lets out a small laugh, shaking his head. “That is not what I wanted to hear.”

Bruce shrugs, smiling as he peers at the glasses in his hands, before he sets them back atop his nose. He’s looking sombre when he says, “Sometimes, you just have to roll the dice and see what happens.”

Bucky ruminates on Bruce’s suggestion for a full twenty-four hours before he realises that what he’s keeping secret is bound to come out eventually.

“What is it?” Tony asks, when Bucky holds out the file on Steve. “Please say compromising pictures of people I don’t like.”

“It’s a Hydra file,” Bucky says quietly.

Tony frowns, letting out a small laugh. “O-kay. We’re being scary serious today. Sure, I’ll bite.”

Tony takes the file, opening it and reading it as he walks. He stops almost immediately, having seen Steve’s face. He looks at Bucky with a surprised look.

“Where the hell did you get this?”

“Does it matter?” Bucky says.

“I don’t know,” Tony says, his eyes back on the file. “Maybe. How long?”

“After the Winter Soldier showed up,” Bucky says. Stark’s eyes widen a little, as he nods.

“Jesus. They really did a number on him,” Tony says. Bucky’s heart’s thumping hard in his chest. There’s a place in that file where Tony will stop caring about what they did to Steve. He’ll think every indignity, every moment of pain suffered, it was deserved. Tony keeps turning the pages, unaware.

Bucky loses his nerve, steps forward and pulls the file away. “This was a bad idea.”

Tony’s frowning at Bucky. “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

When he reaches for the file, Bucky moves away. “Tony-”

“What?” Tony asks, an edge to his voice. He’s caught it. That gut feeling. He knows something in that file has to do with him. Tony stares at the file for a moment, before he holds out his hand and says, “ _Barnes_.”

Bucky hands him the file, and turns away, rubbing a hand over his face. Behind him, Tony reads in silence, quiet for the longest time. Bucky hears a shuffle of papers, a shake, and turns around. Tony is staring at him with a devastated look in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says.

“About what?” Tony asks roughly. “Showing me this? Or the fact that your buddy murdered my parents?”

“Both,” Bucky says honestly.

The answer seems to shake Tony who swallows, moving towards Bucky and throwing the file at him, causing all the pages to fall to the floor. Nearest to Bucky’s foot is a picture of Steve, strapped down to a table, staring ahead at nothing, being turned into nothing.

Bucky looks at a furious Tony and tells him, “I had to tell you.”

“You’ve known for months. Why now?” Tony asks.

“He’s out there. On his own,” Bucky says. “I promised him it would never have to be that way. I’m sticking to my word."

“Are you _out_ of your mind?” Tony grits out. “I can’t believe you’re saying this after what he’s done, after what you’ve seen he can do.”

Bucky tells himself to be patient, to give Tony time, and takes a deep breath before saying, “You read the part where they wiped his mind over and over, right? The part where he had no idea who he was, let alone who he was killing.”

“My dad was his friend, dammit!”

“I know!” Bucky yells, anger and frustration threatening to burst through his chest. “I was there! Howard was my friend too! I’m sorry about what happened to your parents, but Steve...I _know_ him. He would never choose to do anything to hurt Howard.”

“But he _did._ ” Tony steps back, looking rattled, his eyes a little too bright. “He killed my mom and dad.”

Bucky nods slowly, his eyes back on the pages that detail Steve’s torture. “I’ll step down from the Avengers.”

“The _hell_ you will,” Tony says. “You have a job to do here, _Cap_ , so you _do_ it. And you know what, go find your friend. Enjoy whatever time you get together, because the second I lay eyes on him, he pays for what he did.”

“You want to get to him, Tony, you’ll have to come through me first,” Bucky says.

“Not a problem,” Tony replies, before he shoves past Bucky and walks away.

*

“So. That’s it? You’re just going to lie here and feel sorry for yourself?”

Bucky looks up from the couch where he’s lying down, his arms wrapped around a cushion he hasn’t quite smothered himself with yet. Natasha and Sam are both standing over him, framed by the rest of Bucky's new bare brick studio apartment which takes up the second floor of a two storey warehouse. The place looks condemned from the outside, and Bucky has no neighbours that can be put in danger, should someone come looking for Captain America. He learned his lesson when Fury almost died in his old apartment.

Natasha is patiently waiting for answer to her question, so Bucky says, “I’m open to suggestions.”

“We keep working. We give Tony time. We find Rogers,” she replies.

Sam nods approvingly, looking at Bucky whilst pointing at Natasha. “That’s definitely better than your plan.”

“I don’t have a plan,” Bucky says flatly.

“Exactly,” Sam says. “Our plan is way better than _that_ plan.”

Bucky sighs. When it comes down to it, he doesn’t have a choice in when he finds Steve, and whether time will help Tony. All he can do is keep working, keep looking, and keep hoping.


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky swings out his arm, throwing the shield, watching it bounce off the underside of a bridge with a loud clang, and slamming right into a Jorg, or as Clint as named this brand of soldier, a Lizard-Snake-Baby. The Jorgs are all tall, wide, and covered in hard scales from head to clawed toes. They have been for the better part of the last hour shooting out in dart like planes from a stationary vessel hovering above the clouds.

“That is no ordinary ship,” Loki had said as he arrived with a furious looking Thor. “That is a living breathing world-ending beast. The Dark Elves have really outdone themselves this time.”

Bucky catches his shield, and then a glimpse of Tony, the quick one-two of his fists punching out blasts of energy against the reptilian soldiers. Bucky has wondered for weeks what will happen if Tony and Steve come face to face. Unlike Bucky, Tony has no need or desire to separate what Steve did from who was in control when Steve did it. He doesn’t care that Steve’s manipulators dragged Steve’s broken and bleeding body, just to break it a little more, before they could rebuild him in their own image. All he knows is someone took his parents from him.

Bucky spins and smashes his shield into a scaly face. Venom from its spittle catches Bucky all the same, and he feels it burn through the fabric covering his shoulder, hissing, “ _Bastard_.”

“Language,” Natasha teases in his earpiece, the sound of Hulk roaring close in the background.

Bucky grimaces, pulling at the partially dissolved fabric over his new wound, getting it away from his skin, tearing half the sleeve down. He hears a familiar reverberating growl, an uneasy sound of rattling inside the throats of the Jorgs. Pissed off, he turns around and kicks, his foot landing square against the stomach of his would-be assassin, and sending it flying backwards into the wreck of a burnt out truck.

“Fuck these assholes,” he pants, running over debris, jumping over felled objects and parts of buildings, before he leaps towards another Jorg and smashes the shield into his skull with a resounding clang. He holds out his hand towards a figure on the ground, who wearily looks up at Bucky. “You okay?”

“Never better,” Loki says with just a spark of surprise in his eyes. He should be surprised, the asshole. He allows himself to be pulled up, before his eyes turn up towards the looming shadow in the clouds. His mouth twitches, and there’s a quick anxious blink that accompanies the twitch. “She’s growing.”

Bucky follows Loki’s gaze and the Asgardian is right. The shadow of the ship above the clouds is longer, wider. “What are they waiting for? Why don’t they just come down here?”

“They’re waiting for her to be big enough to tear strips out of your world,” Loki says, bringing up his hand where a moment later his sceptre spins into existence. Loki points the tip at Bucky’s chest and tells him, “But I may have quite the indigestible meal for the beast.”

“The hell?” Bucky does a double-take when he realises the sceptre pointed at him is _the sceptre._ He grabs a hold of the end, staring at Loki. “How long have you had this?”

“Tis a recent development,” Loki says, and there’s definite mischief playing at the corner of his mouth. He tugs the sceptre from Bucky’s hold. “Godly things do not belong to mere mortals. Even if they have mangled their faces beyond mortal appearance.”

“You talking about the Red Skull?” Bucky asks. “You _stole_ this from him?”

“ _Reclaimed_ it, dear Captain,” Loki says evenly, before curling his lip a little, “As if he would have known what to do with it.”

“You know, I’m beginning to like you, and I’m really not sure about how that makes me feel,” Bucky says flatly. “What do you plan on doing with it?”

“I plan on using this to blow apart the beast, and all aboard her,” Loki says casually.

Bucky frowns at the sceptre. “It can do that?”

“It can be made to do whatever I want it to do,” Loki says with an amount of admirable confidence, his whole frame straightening with pride.

Bucky nods thoughtfully. He wants to ask why Loki would put himself at risk, but the ship filled with Dark Elves has come by way of Asgard, and left casualties in its wake. Perhaps Bucky ruminates a little too long, because Loki gives him a flinty look and says, “The creature responsible for my mother’s death is on that beast-ship. You’re quite right to think that I am not doing this for you or your people. They’re quite welcome to this world. How does _that_ make you feel?”

“Honestly? A little better,” Bucky says.

Loki grins, clearly amused. He nods at Bucky. “Captain.”

Bucky nods back. “Loki.”

Loki is gone before Bucky even has time to register it. A dart flies low over him, depositing a scaly soldier. There’s a flash of firepower, a glint of the sun’s rays hitting Bucky’s shield, and in that moment Bucky loses sight of Loki, and Loki is simply gone. The Jorg knocks Bucky’s shield away from him, Bucky punching the soldier in the face, followed by a punch to the ribs, only to have a claw-like hand dart out and grab him around the throat. His skin burns a little where he’s being held, and he can feel the venomous mouth in the palm of the creature’s hand.

The creature tilts its head left, slowly, before tilting it right, the amber diamond-shaped irises of its eyes flickering inside the liquid black pupils. Its snake like mouth seems stuck in a sneering smile even if it’s not. Bucky throws a fist at the Jorg’s jaw. Its face snaps back, eyes widening and flickering. Bucky realises he’s being played with, the way a predator plays with its kill. He throws a second punch, which shifts the soldier, but when he recovers, the claw tightens around Bucky’s throat.

Bucky stares at the Jorg through the narrowed slits of his eyes, holding his gaze. The lizard’s surprised when Bucky thrusts his knife into that space just below the rib where the heart is located. The claw loosens, but Bucky rips the knife sideways all the same. The lizard stumbles back, looks down at the wound and then falls to his knees, before tipping over to the side. Bucky stands over him, wiping black blood away on his pants before pocketing the knife. The shield is near his feet, and he easily kicks it back up into his hand, prodding his earpiece on.

“Loki’s got the sceptre,” Bucky says hoarsely.

“Which means Schmidt doesn’t,” Natasha responds. “I suppose that’s something.”

“Great. We can relive the old days,” Clint says as Bucky catches a glimpse of Sam swooping down to deliver a two-footed kick at a reptilian aiming his hand to shoot venom in the direction of Natasha.

“Can he do that? Blow the ship up with the sceptre?” Sam asks, sounding breathless.

“The sceptre’s got something inside it that can do that,” Tony comes in. “Am I right? Thor? Buddy?”

In the distance there’s a bolt of lightning and Bucky follows it down to the figure of Thor, spinning his hammer. Bucky frowns. “Thor? _Thor_?”

Thor doesn’t respond, no matter how many times Bucky clicks his earpiece off and on. Clint, always the voice of reason asks, “You think he’s onto something we’re not?”

There are lizard soldiers heading towards Thor, mesmerised by the lightning around him. Thor keeps spinning his hammer. _Shit_ , Bucky thinks belatedly, telling the others, “You might want to give him some space.”

He’s already running, smashing through reptilian soldiers on his way. When Thor’s hammer comes down, it feels like an earthquake. The surge of power under the ground sends Bucky flying and sprawling. When he gets back on his feet, there’s a piles of dead Jorgs all the way between him and were Thor is standing looking at them. In fact, Thor is at the centre of a ring of grisly death. He spins his hammer again, this time to lift him off the ground and take him out of sight.

The Avengers keep fighting on the ground, with the exception of the Hulk who jumps up and attaches himself to one of the small flying darts from the ship. He jumps from dart to dart, smashing and destroying, until a loud boom echoes above them all. Bucky looks up at the sky and see the beast-ship turn a bright yellow, before becoming a dark shadow again. However, the shadow is shifting, growing bigger. Bucky realises what’s happening and shouts, “It’s coming down! Move!”

The ship’s descent is quick. Bucky looks around the devastated the city. The thing is going to take out a half a block on its trajectory. It’s going to flatten buildings, kill people with its impact. There’s no way to save everyone. It continues to fall, revealing itself to be a strange whale-like shape, its exterior dark and covered in scales. Bucky is rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to stop watching as it falls. There’s a strange feeling of vertigo, the world spinning on its axis.

The beast-ship is filling up the sky when everything comes to a stop. The ship crackles with red energy, seems to twist as if it’s made of fabric, and then twists away into nothingness. Bucky blinks, staring at the empty sky, asking, “What the hell was that?”

“A fucking miracle,” Clint answers.

The ship is gone, but its soldiers are still here. Tony’s voice crackles in Bucky’s ear: “Yeah, well, we’re still a ways from saying amen yet.”

Bucky falls back into the fight, even though he keeps feeling that the ship might reappear at any moment. Things can’t just disappear. Switch places maybe, but not disappear.

*

It’s hours before the dust settles. Bruce is missing. Sam has been airlifted straight to hospital, Natasha at his side. There’s no sign of the ship, but plenty of dead Jorg. The only real moment of genuine relief comes when Bucky sees a plume of smoke clearing and there in its midst is Thor, his cape billowing behind him, hammer hanging in his hand. Bucky lets out a sigh of relief, heading straight towards his friend. On close inspection, Thor looks grim, bloodied and bruised.

“You made it back,” Bucky says quietly. Thor looks at him, smiling just a little, nodding. “Loki?”

“Loki destroyed the stone,” Thor answers, swallowing. His eyes look bright, and his jaw clenches. “He...he’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says. “What happened?”

“He was fatally wounded. Told me to return to Asgard,” Thor says. His brow furrows, and Bucky can see a flash of anger. Smiling bitterly, he says, “He’s always been noble in death.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. Grief is a complicated subject at the best of times, and Thor’s grief is still fresh and raw. “What happened to the ship? One second it was falling, the next it just disappeared.”

Thor frowns, eyes shifting thoughtfully. “There was something as powerful as Loki’s sceptre on the ship. Loki and I meant to take it to Asgard, or somewhere safe. The sceptre’s explosion may have upset it. Tis known as the aether. Attached to the right host, it can be powerful, change the very nature of reality. Attached to a mindless beast, such as it was, it can make for a powerful weapon.”

Bucky’s nodding, thinking about the way the ship just seemed to twist out if existence. Had the nature of its reality been changed somehow? How could something just be pulled out of existence like that?

“I must return to Asgard and speak with my father,” Thor says, “and find out how much more there is beyond the aether, and the stones in the sceptre and the Tesseract.”

“Wait. You think there’s more of this shit lying around?” Bucky asks, not entirely sure why he’s shocked.

Thor frowns slightly and then nods, giving Bucky a pat on the shoulder. “Precisely that.”

“Great,” Bucky says, grimacing at the thought of more alien incursions aided by sceptres and stones.

“Heimdall!” Thor shouts as he goes to stand some distance away. He looks around at the debris and dead lizard soldiers, half-pointing his hammer at Bucky. “Sorry about the uh…”

Bucky just shakes his head, waving with too little effort as Thor is swallowed up by a rainbow of colours. Clint crosses the street, passing the Asgardian stamp from where Thor has taken off.

“Really?” he says. “The Asgardian bros turn up with their fight on our doorstep and now _we_ have to clean up all this shit? Talk about a dick move.”

Bucky sighs, nodding a little. He looks at Clint and says, “Loki’s dead.”

Clint frowns at Bucky, before aiming his confusion elsewhere. “Huh. Guess even an asshole has one good deed in him.”

“I’m not sure good deeds and not being an asshole are mutually exclusive,” Bucky says with a small smile.

Above them, Iron Man descends from high up in the sky, before landing before Bucky and Clint with a loud clunk, his visor slipping back to reveal his face, not free from cuts and bruises like the rest of them. Clint and Bucky are both staring at him, Bucky feeling just a little caught out.

Tony narrows his eyes at them. “What?”

*

It’s almost three in the morning when Natasha turns up on his doorstep, looking hollow-eyed and pissed off. Bucky stands back and lets her in, watching her go to straight to the fridge to extract his beer. They sit on his couch, drinking side by side in silence. He keeps glancing at Natasha, watching her blinking sullenly, her mouth pouting with discontent. She turns her head and frowns at Bucky, before letting go of her bottle which tips to the side and spills as she moves towards him. He holds his beer out of the way, one arm going up in surprise as Natasha moves forward and sloppily presses her mouth against Bucky’s.

When he doesn’t respond, she pulls back and has a fierce frown on her face. Bucky quietly tells her, “Sam’s gonna be okay, you know?”

Natasha pulls a face, angry and frustrated, looking away from Bucky. Her beer continues to spill, seeping into the couch cushions. Bucky doesn’t care. She can trash the whole place if it’ll make her feel better.

“It’s getting old,” she says quietly, “watching people break.”

Bucky clenches his jaw down on the surge of emotions he doesn’t want to feel. He tells her, “Probably beats not having people.”

Natasha stares at him. Maybe it’s a low blow, but she hasn’t smacked him in the face for it, so maybe it’s just right. She snorts, smiling a little. “Better to love and lose, than not love at all?”

Bucky deflates and quietly replies, “Better to concentrate on giving a shit, and not think about losing at all. You start thinking about what you stand to lose, that’s a hole you’re not going to be able to climb back out of quick. Trust me, I know.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Natasha says throatily, eyes bright and soft. “Captain America _and_ philosopher.”

Bucky laughs off the comment and Natasha moves to press up against him, tucking her head under his chin. Bucky tightens his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. They fall asleep on the couch like that, Bucky wedged into the corner, and Natasha having squeezed her body into its smallest, pressed against him. Bucky dreams about Sam falling, only mid-fall Sam morphs into Natasha, and Natasha into Steve.

Bucky wakes up in a completely unravelled state, slipping out of Natasha’s embrace, stumbling towards the bathroom where he stands panting against the locked door. The mirror opposite reflects back a face drained of colour and fevered looking eyes. He just stares at himself, almost as if the man in the mirror is someone other than him. The world seems to click back into place and he slides down to the floor and stares off into space until Natasha knocks on the door to tell him Sam’s out of danger, as if such a thing is actually possible.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam’s recovery seems like an excuse for them all to lick their wounds. Tony makes sure Sam has the best care, the best room, the best bed, the best TV channels. If he could source the best bedpan, he would. Clint tells Sam he’s going to bring over chips and something lucky. The chips are chips, and the something lucky turns out to be a dog around whom no one is allowed to say ‘pizza’.

“Doesn’t he like pizza?” Bucky asks, watching Lucky perk up and wag his tail, eyes bright and happy, looking hopefully in Clint’s direction.

“You’re an asshole,” Clint says, his annoyance completely cancelled out by the white tape over the bridge of his slightly swollen nose. There are no more visible bruises on him, but he’s moving carefully, and looking as if it’s been a while since he slept well.

Natasha arrives looking like Natasha, confident and put together perfectly. She’s pretending she doesn’t remember the night on his couch, where they didn’t tear at each other’s clothes, didn’t find refuge in each other’s naked bodies, and didn’t stay up all night, fucking with desperation. Bucky gives her a long look and a small smile, and Natasha’s eyes go just a little soft, her guard dropping for him.

Sam looks from one to the other with a scowl. “You two break up or something?”

“Wait…” Clint says, staring at Natasha, “What...?”

Natasha levels an extremely cool and challenging look at Clint. “What?”

“What?” Tony asks as he walks into the crowded room, bruises hidden away behind sunglasses, swagger and sharp suit. He tips his head up slightly towards Bucky in acknowledgement. Bucky nods back. Everyone is hopelessly awkward about the exchange, openly watching it. Tony looks at them and then at the dog watching him serenely. “I’m not the only one seeing this guy, right?”

Bucky gets up out of the uncomfortable seat he’s been slumped in for about an hour, motioning to the door. “I’m just gonna grab a coffee.”

Bucky takes a lethargic walk to the coffee machine, prodding the machine for his drink before completely forgetting about it and just staring at the machine. Sam’s okay, but there’s that ever present feeling skittering in his chest that things are only ever okay for limited amounts of time. And he misses Steve. He misses Steve so much he feels weighed down by it, as if his body might physically give up the ability to ever move again.

“Coffee’s done.” Bucky frowns, looking to his side to find Tony standing there, watching him closely as he takes off his sunglasses, folding them up and pocketing them, revealing a bruise around his eye which is into the uglier end of healing. Bucky looks at the coffee, and finds himself unable to find even an ounce of the energy needed to lift the cup. Tony makes a face at the drink. “You’re right. Hospital coffee sucks.”

Bucky sighs, feels his gears shifting, wills himself to at least pick the cup up so no one else will have to. He empties it into the drip tray and throws the cup into the bin next to the machine, turning to return to Sam’s room. Tony steps in front of him, looking concerned. “You all right?”

Bucky lets out a laugh. “Am I all right? I dunno. _Am_ I? Are _you_?”

“No,” Tony says easily. “I am _so_ not all right, Barnes. All right? That is a planet in a different galaxy far far away which I’m not about to visit anytime soon. But get this, my girlfriend who happens to be way smarter than me, says it’s okay not to be all right. I dunno, it’s human or something.”

“ _Tony_ ,” Bucky says, pained and distressed even to his own ears. “What do you want?”

“Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you knew? You’re my _friend_ ,” Tony says, jabbing a finger hard in Bucky’s chest. He swallows, quietens and says, “You’re my friend dammit.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Bucky says, frowning at Tony. Tony has to know that, has to know this is as much about him as it is about Steve. “But I realised there was no way to avoid hurting you. So maybe it was better earlier than later. I dunno. I dunno if I did the right thing. All I know is Steve loved Howard, and your dad was the last person Steve would ever want to hurt. You know, if he knew Howard got married, had a kid, he’d be so goddamn happy. As happy as someone who had those things for himself.”

Tony’s expression is grim, his gaze unable to keep contact with Bucky’s. His mouth clamps together in frustration, the way it does when he’s trying to rein in his anger. When he looks at Bucky, he says, “You should have come to me as soon as you knew it was Rogers under that mask. I would have looked into it, seen for myself what they did to him. I could have helped you. All you had to do was come to me.”

“Despite what he did?” Bucky asks.

“I dunno,” Tony snaps. “Maybe. But I guess we’ll never know.”

Tony sighs, wiping a hand over his face, before his hands go to rest on his hips as he looks around the empty corridor.

“Thank you,” Bucky says quietly.

Tony looks at him, rolling his eyes and asking, “For what?”

“For standing here...talking to me,” Bucky says, his emotions feeling shredded and raw.  “I don’t expect you to forgive this. I don’t even expect you to understand.”

Tony laughs, sounding a little bitter. “Well, there’s the crux. Against my will, it appears I do. And I...I _hate_ it. I really hate that I understand, because you’re right. I shouldn’t have to.”

Tony’s eyes are bright, but the sheen never turns into tears. They stand quietly for a moment. A nurse walks by, eyeing them both and remaining stern when they both offer her awkward looks. Bucky looks at Tony and asks, “What now?”

“Hell if I know,” Tony says with a shrug and a sigh. “I guess we start with Sam getting back on his feat. You explaining why Barton looked like his dog was about to die back there. And then...devising a plan to wipe every last Hydra bastard off the face of the planet.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Bucky says, swallowing hard as he feels something unclench in his chest. Tony nods, clapping a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. They both head back to Sam’s room, where they find Sam alone, Lucky draped over his legs. Bucky frowns and asks, “Where are Nat and Clint?”

Tony sinks down in a chair next to the bed, watching the channels change as Sam surfs. Sam turns the volume up on some UN press conference, explaining, “They’re _talking_.”

“Talking huh?” Tony asks, brows climbing high. He scowls at Bucky.  “What’s the deal with you and Romanoff anyway?”

“It’s complicated,” Bucky and Sam say together, before Sam elaborates with, “Buck’s kind of the stress relief.”

“ _Hey,_ ” Bucky says, whilst Tony bursts out laughing, curling forward in his chair, half of the popcorn he’s nabbed from Sam’s bag falling in his lap. Bucky scowls and sits down in the other empty chair in the room, muttering, “Pair of assholes.”

Tony carries on laughing, Sam joining in, whilst Lucky jumps from the bed and goes to Bucky, putting a consoling paw on Bucky’s knee. Bucky gives him a pat, watching the TV where the camera is focusing closely on the face of a man with warm eyes and bright smile.

“Who is _that_?” Bucky asks, watching appreciatively.

“T’Challa,” Sam says with an accent Bucky doesn’t know. Bucky nods, pulling an appreciative face. Sam tells him, “Yeah, way out of your league. He’s the crown prince of Wakanda.”

Tony is staring at Sam, and then at Bucky. After a moment he says, “You don’t say.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and watches the TV where Prince T’Challa is issuing the politest threat Bucky has ever heard. “Wakanda will not stand for the theft of its precious resources. We _will_ find the people involved in breaching our borders for vibranium, and there _will_ be repercussions.”

“Vibranium,” Bucky murmurs, thinking of his shield. He looks at Tony. “I don’t suppose we owe this guy an apology, do we?”

*

There’s been a tight knot in Bucky’s chest which starts to ease when weeks later Sam walks out of hospital unaided. Bruce is still missing. Steve is still missing. But Tony is talking to Bucky, even if he prefers to avoid the subject of Steve, or talk around it in a way that keeps it disconnected to the pain it causes him. Clint and Nat seem...absent. Sam explains the absence as making up for lost time, both he and Bucky at Avengers HQ, making use of the deepest sofa, and biggest TV screen.

“Oh,” Bucky says. He never realised there was time lost between them.

“You okay?” Sam asks. Bucky frowns, not sure why he wouldn’t be okay. Sam’s frown deepens with a side of ‘are you some kind of idiot?’ “You and Natasha.”

Bucky’s eyes widen in realisation. Right. Of course. He blinks at Sam, thinking of the appropriate thing to say. He’s happy for her, if disappointed for himself? It was just a bit of fun? That term Nat used about friendly benefits? Thing is, he’s not disappointed for himself, even though it wasn’t _just_ a bit of fun. Nat occupies a strange and unique place in his heart. He doesn’t know if either of them are right for each other, the way two people are when they realise they want to spend the rest of their lives together. All he knows is, the idea she might have found that person is not something that make him sad at all.

“I want her to be happy,” Bucky says. He shrugs and adds, “She’s one of my best friends. I was kind of hoping you two kids might get together actually.”

“Well, thank you, Auntie Barnes,” Sam says with a grin, “but Nat and I happen to be just friends. And I mean the kind of friends that have all the problems and none of the benefits.”

Bucky grins at that. “Well, Clint’s a good guy too. Like I said, as long as she’s happy.”

“What about you?” Sam asks after a moment of quiet observation. “Are _you_ happy?”

Bucky pretends to think about it and smiles. “Like, right now, answering all these questions? I can’t say I am, Samuel.”

Sam laughs, nodding. “Okay, we’re not doing this right now, that’s cool.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Bucky says, snagging the remote from Sam and flicking through the channels in the same aimless fashion Sam’s been doing. After a moment of chewing on his bottom lip, he says, “It’s not really about being happy.”

“It’s not?” Sam says after waiting a long time for Bucky to elaborate.

Bucky thinks about it long and hard, the last time he was happy, the very last time. He had just hugged Steve, and Steve had told him he was taking all the stupid with him. He was happy because he was going to serve his country, fight the good fight. He was happy because the future looked bright, promising and exciting. And he was happy that Steve, pissed off as he was about not being able enough to get enlisted, was safe. Steve would be safe at home, and Bucky would return after the war and they’d just pick up where they’d left off. He wasn’t much older than he is now, but he was so much younger. So naive.

“Buck?” Sam prods gently.

Bucky turns his nose up, shaking his head. “It’s about having purpose. Using your wings. Using your suit of armour. Using your skills...to do what’s right. Doesn’t even matter if you have nothing to fight with, nothing more than a pair of bony fists or just a whole lot of attitude. As long as you stand up for what’s right. Any asshole can be happy.”

“I dunno,” Sam says. “From where I’m sitting, it looks like not _any_ asshole can be happy.”

Bucky shakes his head, and lets a small laugh erupt out of him. Happiness seems too big a thing, too out of sight and touch. But every now and then, he feels a spark of something warm, something that soothes the need to just keep fighting, and that’s as close enough to happy as he needs to be.

*

It turns out that Tony can’t trace exactly how his father ended up with the vibranium used in the shield Steve Rogers chose when he became Captain America. The twist to Tony’s mouth suggests that he’s not entirely happy with this lack of answer. Bucky claps him on the shoulder and says, “Well, there was a war going on. Stuff gets misplaced. You find things.”

Tony gives him a look, and a sulky smile. “Yeah...no.”

Bucky shrugs, “Just trying to help, man.”

“Well, commendable as your attempt to help is, it’s fairly futile,” Tony says, scrolling through a screen that isn’t really there, suspended before him from some super duper futuristic projector. “Nothing about the shield, or the prototype.”

“Why are you so obsessed with this?” Bucky asks.

Tony sighs, shoulders sagging. “ _Because_. It’s not...it’s not how we do things.”

“Tony, we were at war,” Bucky says a little tiredly. “Howard did everything he could so our side could have a fighting chance. Maybe that includes buying a lump of metal without knowing where it came from, or without caring how it got into his hand. Doesn’t make him any better or worse a person than he was.”

Tony’s jaw clenches. He blinks at the screen before him, waving a hand through it and making it go away, before he gets up and walks off towards a workbench piled with parts, telling Bucky, “War doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be accountable for our sins, Barnes.”

“War doesn’t mean we’re all criminals either,” Bucky says. Tony looks back at him, gives him just the smallest smile as a concession.

“You know who _would_ have had problem with this?” Tony says, picking up some kind of cog, and using it to point at Bucky. “Your guy Rogers. From what my dad told me about him, he seems like the kind of person who definitely would have had an issue with putting our hands on things that don’t belong to us. Probably would give up the shield to make a point.”

It’s true. Steve would have found it distasteful and been full of righteous indignation. Bucky smiles and says, “You’re gonna have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.”

Tony grins, nodding. “Yeah, I don’t think we need to go that far.”

“Then what?” Bucky says.

Tony shrugs. “I dunno. Apology. Peace offering. _Something_ that says we're the good guys.”

“Sure,” Bucky says. “Who knows. We might even be able to get some vibranium the proper way, if we’re real nice.”

“And I thought I was a cynical bastard,” Tony says with a shake of his head. Bucky grins, watching Tony sit back down, snapping his projected screen back to life. He looks at Bucky and smiles, “You know, there’s a hell of a lot more we could do with some vibranium though.”

Bucky smiles, biting down on the words, 'Now there's the Howard I know'.


	6. Chapter 6

There’s a week where Bucky is walking around with the strangest feeling. Something in the air feels wrong. There’s a flutter of panic in his chest every now and then, a voice in his head telling him to watch out, be careful. It doesn’t stop the whole time they’re in Lagos, chasing Rumlow and his goons. Bucky finally gets Rumlow on the ground, and for a moment waits for him to spew his bile, watching his expression working into a sneer. But then he thinks of Steve in Hydra’s clutches all those years, thinks of Rumlow masquerading as a part of SHIELD. It feels as though a million thoughts rocket through Bucky’s mind in under a second, and before he knows it, he’s smashing his shield hard into Rumlow’s face, knocking him out cold, before the bastard can utter a single word of his poisonous bullshit.

They all find out later Rumlow was walking around wired up to blow, a ticking time bomb with every intention to explode, and take as many people with him as possible. Bucky should leave him to rot, but maybe because he hates himself just a little, he ends up in front of Rumlow’s cell, where the turncoat is sitting scarred and smug. His grin widens when he sees Bucky on the other side of the glass wall. “Well well, if it ain’t Bucky Barnes, Captain America himself. Nice. I was feeling a little lonely.”

Bucky watches him in silence. Rumlow had access to the Winter Soldier. He was listed amongst the names of teams that were assigned as handlers. _Handlers_ , Bucky thinks bitterly, wanting to lash out at the thought of Steve being treated like an animal, like a machine. It makes him sick and angry at the same time, and he wants to punch through the glass wall, and then punch right through Rumlow’s face.

“What are you looking at?” Rumlow asks with a curl of the lip. “You like what you see? Funny. I always had you down as a pretty boy type.”

Bucky doesn’t react to that particular jibe. It’s not the first time someone’s made an insinuation about where his desires lie. It’s pretty much as low as Rumlow can go in terms of riling Bucky up. Rumlow looks away, laughing quietly. When he looks up again, he’s nodding.

“You know what, I read a hell of a lot about Rogers. You’d think he was a god the way some people talk about him. But if you ask me, he never really had the grit to be Captain America,” Rumlow says, a condescending smile on his face. “You, on the other hand. You got that metal. The kind that makes a real soldier. Don’t you? Not Rogers. No, he was soft. I saw his face when he remembered his Bucky. Looked like he was going to cry like little a baby.”

Bucky steps close to the cell, and hears the movement of guards immediately, stepping close to stop him if they need to. Bucky looks up at the glass wall of the cell, its width and height. Looking back at Rumlow in his sterile white room, he says, “You know, I gotta think, if you’re willing to go on a suicide mission, there’s probably a part of you that wishes you were dead anyway. Unfortunately, you messed up, and here you are. Alive, and stuck in this little box until you die of old age.”

Rumlow lunges from where he’s sitting and smashes scarred fists against the glass wall, growling at Bucky, before bursting into laughter. “You know how long it took to break him down? _Forever_. Poor bastard was just too damn stubborn to quit. They just kept wiping him over and over until his brain was mushy enough to put him to any goddamn use. Oh, the things they did to your boy.”

Bucky laughs, a hollow sound, shaking his head. He nods and says, “You’re fucking pathetic, you know that?”

Rumlow nods, stepping back and pointing at Bucky. “You’ll get yours too one day, Barnes. My word as a soldier.”

“Yeah well,” Bucky says, turning away, “Your word don’t mean shit, does it?”

Bucky walks away with Rumlow’s taunts ringing in his ears. He’s seventy years away from where he should be, and his best friend has been mangled from hero to assassin, yet scum like Rumlow still has reason to laugh. How does that happen? How does Rumlow get to laugh? Bucky comes to a stop in front of a coffee machine, his hand reaching out to press a button. He just needs something to do...with his hands, his body, he just...he just needs...just needs to keep...moving...

_I saw his face when he remembered his Bucky. He looked like he was going to cry like a little baby_

Bucky glimpses his reflection in the black sheen of the machine, just a stripe of it between other images, but it sends a surge of anger through him he can’t control. He smashes his fist hard into the machine, mangling plastic, and immediately busting the lights inside it. He smashes it a second time, hearing footsteps running down the corridor. There are voices too, but he can’t make them out past the roaring of blood in his ears. He just keeps smashing at the machine, wanting it to be Rumlow, wanting to smash him into bone and gore.

“Hey! _Hey!”_  There are hands on him, pulling and grabbing, getting him to his knees. “Barnes!”

Bucky scowls and stills, falling from one knee onto his ass with a thump. He looks at his bloodied fist, swallowing hard and shutting his eyes. He can hear Natasha’s voice in his ear, the heat of her body against one arm, his hand gripped tight in hers. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

He shakes his head, because it’s so not okay at all. How can it be? Above him, he hears Sam tell someone, “We’ve got this,” and Tony adding, “Show’s over, okay?”

Bucky blinks wetly at Natasha. He sees panic in her eyes for the first time since he’s met her, feeling a surge of shame because she's afraid - not of him, but for him. Even hours later, she’s glancing at him every few minutes, watching him carefully as she brings him tea. He frowns at the cup for a moment, wondering why he even has tea in his apartment. Bucky rubs his forehead where an ache has been blooming over his left eye, catching sight of the bandage around his hand. It’ll be unnecessary by morning, but it’s a comfort because Natasha wrapped it around his knuckles with such care, her eyes shining with concern when their gazes met for a moment.

She sits down next to him on his couch, placing a hand on his knee. “You okay?”

Bucky looks at her, frowning. He feels unable to answer the question adequately and instead reaches out to cup the side of her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. Months ago, it would have been obvious what came next. Now...the idea of it seems hollow. The idea of everything seems hollow. Even seeing Steve again, seeing him turned into something...someone Bucky doesn’t know. It’s terrifying. Bucky catches sight of a small discreet pendant that sits delicately at the base of her throat, and reaches for it, mustering a small smile, prodding the silver arrow with his forefinger, before pulling his hand away.

“You should go,” he says quietly. “I’m fine.”

Natasha shifts, getting more comfortable, folding her arms over her chest. She lifts her chin in the direction of the cup on the table. “Drink your tea, okay?”

Bucky blinks at her, before vacantly turning his attention to the cup. There’s something awful bubbling up inside him. Something that makes his lungs hurt when he breathes, stings his eyes. His face feels like it’s burning when he can’t stop himself from telling Natasha, “I miss him.”

“I know,” she tells him softly. “I know you do. You will find him, you know?”

Maybe, Bucky thinks. It all depends on what Hydra have left of him to find. It keeps him up all night, the memory of Steve staring at him, not knowing his own name. The memory of him on the Helicarrier, pounding his fists against Bucky, and that look in his eyes, dark terror in the middle of blue confusion. Bucky thinks of sinking to the bottom of a river, and the sun somehow magically reaching into its depths to glint off a metal hand. That wasn’t a dream. That was something real. That was Steve choosing to save him.

“Barnes?” Bucky looks to his side where Tony is watching him with a concerned frown. Bucky has been preoccupied throughout the night and into the morning, all the way through Rhodey’s briefing. Bucky shakes his head and Tony looks at Rhodey, telling him, “He says you’re being boring.”

Bucky sighs and looks at Rhodey with a tired smile, shaking his head. Rhodey nods, rolling his eyes. “ _Anyway_ , once again, for those of us who have the attention span of a banana, Tony, there’s still a little bit of noise on the regulation-”

“I don’t think we need regulation,” Tony says with a shrug, “I mean, I feel pretty regular. You guys feel regular?”

“I feel good,” Sam says with a nod.

“Sam?” Rhodey says sternly, “Please. Don’t...don’t encourage him. What happened with Rumlow could have gone real bad, okay, and everybody knows it. The day is coming when someone is gonna sit us all down and ask for us to commit to being held accountable for our actions.”

Tony laughs. “Are you kidding me? We _are_ accountable. No one here is hiding behind a mask. The world knows who the Avengers are. There is literally a sign on the door.”

Rhodey holds up his hands. “This is not me, okay? This is what I’m being told. There are people out there who, _rightly_ , feel threatened by-”

“Oh please,” Tony says, scrunching up his face with disapproval.

“...unsanctioned persons taking the law into their own hands,” Rhodey enunciates over Tony’s continued objections.

Bucky feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and ignores the arguing around him to read the message that’s popped up. Once he’s read it, the rest of the sound around him seems to completely fade into silence.

“I, uh, I gotta make a call,” Bucky says, getting up and heading out into the corridor, where he stands staring at the screen of his phone. His legs feel strange and he ends up sitting down on the floor, leaning against the wall, unable to stop looking at the text he’s been sent.

“Hey,” Sam says, turning up ten minutes later. He takes up a spot against the opposite wall, just leaning there with his arms folded over his chest. “Steve?”

“No.” Bucky shakes his head. “It’s Peggy. She...she's gone.”

“Sorry, man,” Sam says quietly.

“She was old,” Bucky says vacantly. “Old like I’m supposed to be. Like Steve's supposed to be.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier to let go of someone,” Sam says, too gentle, too careful. “It’s not about how old someone is. Is it?”

Bucky closes his eyes and swallows, clamping his mouth down on all the frustration thrumming through his body. He shakes his head, and lets out a laugh. “She didn’t even remember me. She thought...she thought I was her grandson when I went to see her. She’s been gone since before I even got here.”

Sam is quiet for a while, and then very carefully says, “Look, I know this might not be the time to bring it up, but it’s probably something we need to think about. News of her death is going to spread-”

Bucky swallows. “He loved her. If he remembers her, he’s not going to miss his chance to say goodbye.”

“Okay,” Sam says, nodding. “Okay.”

*

It’s a packed church for Peggy Carter. Of course it is. She was perfect, Bucky thinks, everyone loved her. Most of all Steve, whose blue eyes would turn into large saucers whenever Peggy was near. The first time Bucky had seen her, the way she looked at Steve, the way Steve looked at her, there was a part of Bucky that definitely hated her a little bit. He’d loved Steve for so much longer, but she, it seemed, had just swept him completely off his goddamn feet in a matter of moments. Steve hadn’t just been in love, he had been besotted.

Sam nudges Bucky out of his reverie, and Bucky looks up to see a familiar face reading a sermon from the pulpit. Seems a little rich for Sharon Carter to be preaching up there, considering she spied on him for a time whilst pretending to be his neighbour To be honest though, Bucky can’t think of anyone, including himself, that should be anywhere near a pulpit. He looks at Sam and frowns, admitting to himself that maybe there’s one guy here with whom the almighty might not have an issue.

“Neighbour,” he says dryly, when he sees Sharon after the service. She smiles as she turns to face him, nodding. “So, Peggy's niece, huh? You kept that quiet.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be common knowledge,” Sharon says. “It’s tough enough in this job without making people wonder if I called in a favour.”

“To get shot at?” Bucky asks. “People are idiots.”

Sharon frowns slightly, before her gaze turns to Sam at Bucky’s side. She smiles at him, and he extends his hand, telling her, “Sam Wilson. We haven’t met. I’m sorry for your loss. You aunt seemed like an amazing woman.”

Sharon smiles at Sam. “She was. She really was.”

Sam and Sharon keep talking about Peggy, whilst Bucky catches sight of a cap pulled down low, a face obscured by a thick beard. Bucky slips through the space between Sharon and Sam, drifting towards the doors at the end of the church, and a man slipping out, wearing a pond green jacket with blue jeans and black sneakers. Bucky runs out of the church and onto the street, catching sight of the blue cap. Bucky keeps his eyes on the man wearing it, drifting down the street, waiting. The man turns around, and he looks right at Bucky.

“Steve,” Bucky breathes out with aching relief.

Steve’s eyes seem pinned on Bucky for the longest time, but then he’s moving through the crowd and Bucky is running to catch up. Only, between the rush of the crowd, the changing of traffic lights, and the passing of a bus, Steve is gone. Bucky runs to the corner of the street and turns around and around for a glimpse of that cap, but he sees nothing. Steve is gone again.

*

“Are you sure it was him?” Sam asks. Sharon is sitting next to him, sipping a coffee, the three of them in a small cafe, Bucky feeling like a third wheel.

“It was him,” Bucky says, his rigid fingers folding a paper napkin into every decreasing squares. “He looked right at me.”

“Do you think he remembers you?” Sharon asks. Bucky shrugs, shaking his head. She bites her bottom lip for a moment, before tentatively saying, “I think...I think he went to see Aunt Peggy in the hospital. She kept saying she saw Steve. We thought maybe it was just...she was getting worse. But maybe she wasn’t. Maybe he did go to see her.”

Sam covers Sharon’s hand with his own, an understanding look on his face. He looks at Bucky and says, “If he remembers Peggy, he’s gotta remember more.”

“Yeah," Bucky says, trying not to sound as hurt as he feels, keeping back the words, so  _why did he run from me?_

That evening, as he walks through the cemetery where she's buried, he finds himself battling bitter thoughts he thought were buried in the past. He stands over her fresh grave, laying his flowers, telling her, "Looks like he still only has eyes for you."

"No point talking to the dead, son. They can't answer anyone back."

Bucky blinks, stilling, before he takes a deep breath and turns to look at Fury. He smiles a little. "Figured you'd turn up sooner or later."

Fury nods, tilting his head to look at the headstone. "No Peggy Carter, no SHIELD. But that's not why you're here, is it?"

Bucky looks at his flowers on Peggy's grave. "I thought I saw Steve at the funeral. Maybe I was wrong."

Fury is nodding. "Maybe. Or maybe he saw you and the time just isn't right for a reunion."

Bucky swallows, his eyes drawn back to Peggy's headstone. "He doesn't have to be alone."

"No," Fury says, "he doesn't. But that's not for you to decide."

Bucky nods, defeated by the layers of grief he can't untangle. Sighing, he looks at Fury and says, "So...you look good for a dead guy."


	7. Chapter 7

As a kid in Brooklyn, one thing Bucky never expected was to be invited into the home of the President of the United States of America. It’s a shock when that’s exactly what happens, when the Avengers get an invite to a black tie event at the White House. Tony is about the only person who doesn't seem fazed by the whole thing, telling the team, “Don’t be too impressed, I wouldn’t have some of the guests on that list.”

All the same, there is an unjaded part of Bucky’s heart which is very impressed indeed, the same piece of his heart which carries memories of Steve before he became a super soldier, a place where they are forever young, but unaided by serums and science. A bubble of time where everything seemed on the cusp of perfection, whether perfection was anywhere near or not.

“You all right?” Sam asks when Bucky zones out for a moment, his gaze jumping from one dignitary to another whose name he doesn’t know.

“I just shook hands with the president,” Bucky says as way of explanation.

“Oh yeah,” Sam says. “It’s pretty cool the first time.”

“The first time?” Bucky asks.

“What? You think I didn’t have a life before the Avengers?” Sam asks with a little smirk.

Bucky takes a gulp of his champagne and dryly comments, “Show off.”

Then he spots a dignitary he _does_ recognise, the Prince of Wakanda with a pretty bald lady hovering just behind him. There’s an older important looking man who is pointing the prince in someone’s direction, and Bucky realises it’s in the direction of Tony and Rhodey.

“Well, isn’t that a happy coincidence?” Bucky says, Sam nodding next to him. A moment later, Tony catches their attention and waves them over.

“You shake hands with a prince before?” Bucky asks they head over.

“First time,” Sam says, and Bucky’ll be damned if Sam doesn’t look just a little bit impressed.

“Fellas,” Tony says when they’ve joined the small group. “Prince T’Challa of Wakanda, General Okoye, I’d like to introduce you to my friends and fellow Avengers, Sam Wilson, and James Buchanan Barnes.”

Both Sam and Bucky shake T’Challa’s hand by turn, and then Okoye’s. T’Challa has a firm grip, strong, but not aggressive. His smile is close-mouthed and soft, and his eyes are naturally warm. Okoye, neither smiles, nor displays warmth in her eyes. Her gaze remains sharp and smart. Her poise suggests she would be ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Standing next to her, Bucky finds himself straightening up _just_ a little more than usual.

T’Challa nods at them and says, “It is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard much about the Avengers. Not just your recent exploits in Lagos.”

“We’re just doing our jobs,” Sam says politely.

T’Challa nods, but something flickers in those warm eyes of his. “That would imply you are in the employ of someone, would it not?”

Sam smiles, nodding. “Some might see it that way. It’s a little more complex.”

“Just admit I’m your sugar daddy,” Tony says. Sam shakes his head at that, and Rhodey just looks at Tony, who asks, “What? I do the bankrolling, so we can do the saving.”

“I think what Tony means is that with the Avengers currently mainly being funded by private enterprise rather than a government agency, we’re free to act outside political agenda,” Rhodey says with a polite smile. Bucky thinks he sees Okoye’s eyebrow shift just a tiny bit upwards.

“But are you without political agenda?” T’Challa asks, still with that damn polite smile. “How do you decide which battles you fight, which people you save? You were in Lagos, and your actions saved many lives. But what if the man you apprehended had succeeded with his plans? Countless lives would have been lost, including those of my people.”

“Sure,” Sam says nodding in agreement. “A lot of people could have died that day. But they didn’t. We went in there as a team, we agreed we were there to stop a Grade A asshole from doing serious damage, and we did that. We made a call based on what we thought was _right_. It's all we can do.”

“Or,” Bucky adds, “I guess you and a bunch of powerful politicians could get together, get us to agree that we only go save the people you think we should save. Would that make you feel better about the safety of your people?”

T’Challa smiles at that. “I am not here to aid those who would tie your hands.”

“That’s good to know,” Sam says. “Because I really can’t see any politician giving enough of a damn to send us somewhere they don’t have a vested interest.”

“I think what my friends are trying to say here is...the Avengers aren’t motivated by anything other than our collective conscience,” Rhodey says carefully.

“It’s true. We really don’t give a shit about anyone’s political agenda,” Tony says with a nod, instantly earning a reprimanding look from Rhodey. Tony points in the direction of the ever popular president. “I mean, not even that guy. And I like him. We all do.”

T’Challa laughs at that, and Rhodey relaxes just a little. T’Challa turns his gaze to Tony, smiling as he says, “This leaves the matter of the vibranium you discovered in Sokovia.”

Tony gives both Bucky and Sam a narrow-eyed look before telling T’Challa, “Yeah, figured that might come up.”

*

“Googling Wakanda, huh?” Clint asks, leaning over the back of the couch and peering at Bucky’s laptop. “Planning a vacation?”

Bucky scowls at the images. They’re all similar views of the countryside, or rural areas. All very controlled. Wakanda is a prosperous nation, but one that is shrouded in secrecy in order to protect its inhabitants. Bucky can’t help but feel intrigued. Not to mention the fact that the very name Wakanda makes something flutter under Bucky’s skin.

“Just curious,” Bucky says, closing his laptop. He watches Clint walk around the couch before landing on it lumpenly, blinking ahead at the TV screen. “So...how are things?”

Clint arches a brow at Bucky. “Things?”

“You and Nat. I noticed she’s been looking...exactly the same as ever, which is probably good,” Bucky says with a shrug.

Clint grins, nodding thoughtfully. “Yeah...I guess that is good. Yeah. I dunno, man, things are good. Nat is Nat, you know? She’s...she’s a hell of a woman.”

“You know, I really don’t want to hear a _but_ next,” Bucky says.

Clint smiles, his fingers stretching, making fists, stretching. “There’s no _but_ , man. She’s a hell of a woman, period. I just can’t help wondering how long this can go on before something messes up.”

Bucky shrugs, “Well, you can keep going or…”

“Take her away somewhere safe where nothing can ever touch her or hurt her?” Clint asks, going for casual, but giving himself away with just a touch of nerves that tighten his face at the corners of his eyes and his mouth.

“You could do that,” Bucky says. “But, it would probably have to be someone who’s not Nat.”

Clint shakes his head. “You don’t understand.”

“What? I don’t understand how when you’re in love all you want to do is keep her safe? Fight all her battles? Hide her away where only you can see her?” Bucky says, aiming a scowl at Clint. “You could do all that and still lose her. Or, you can just be with her now, you know, instead of waiting for the right moment, and realising the right moment was whenever you had the balls to say what was in your heart.”

Clint smiles, frowning a little. “That’s beautiful. You ever think about writing greeting cards?”

Bucky lets out a quiet laugh. “Look, I’m just saying...don’t waste your time worrying about what might go wrong if you say all the things you want to say.”

He remembers too well his mouth uttering stupidly, “We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It'll be fun. All you gotta do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash.”

 _I want you to stay with me_ were the words he had really wanted to say. But then he would have to explain why he might _want_ such a thing. _I want to be there for you, forever_ , was what we wanted to say. The closest he got was, “I'm with you to the end of the line.”

They both sit quietly for a while, watching the news, until Clint remarks, “So, Sam says you have a crush on the Prince of Wakanda.”

“He smells _real_ nice,” Bucky says with a frown. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who smelled that nice before.”

Bucky sits and ruminates on the memory of a fresh water scent, clean, smoky, and a little sweet. Next to him, Clint discreetly pulls at his own sweatshirt for a quick sniff.

*

It’s raining and Bucky’s on his fire escape finishing off a cigarette. Being a super soldier doesn’t take away a dislike of the rain and the cold, and a remembered feeling of a fear of the elements. There’s an immediate desire for warmth, for shelter. He thinks of being much younger, huddling with Steve, both of them left to their own devices. He thinks of a home lost to the past. He had it good, thanks to his folks. Good enough that when Steve’s mother passed away, his parents barely batted an eyelid when Bucky decided he was going to offer his friend a place to stay.

He wonders if they knew exactly what Steve meant to him. What would his father think? What would his mother say? His eyes sting just at the thought of it. He’ll never know, good or bad, he’s been saved that revelation. They were alive when he went to war, but not when he woke up. Two gravestones in a collection of many.

“Hey, Captain Broody, you coming in or what?” Sam asks, sticking his head through the window. Bucky stubs out his cigarette on the flat of the iron railing before climbing back into the apartment. Sam wrinkles his nose. “I thought you were giving up.”

Bucky clears his throat, grimacing. “I’m working on it.”

Sam sits down at the kitchen counter, two chilled bottles of beer waiting close by. The file they’ve been looking at is still open. Sam says, “You know, if these really are sightings of him, I’m not sure he’s actually trying to hide.”

Bucky slips on a hoodie, zipping it half-way up, frowning in Sam’s direction. “Well, if he’s not trying to hide, we are really bad at finding him.”

Sam shakes his head. “No, I mean, yeah, he’s trying to keep a low profile. But that’s not all. I think he’s looking for something. Or maybe someone. Otherwise, these are just really random sightings of him in places where he hasn’t stayed very long before moving on, whether someone made him or not.”

“What would an ex-Hydra assassin be looking for?” Bucky asks.

Sam rubs the back of his neck, scowling in thought, before shaking his head. “I dunno, man. What would you do? If you were an ex-Hydra assassin? What would you be doing right now?”

Bucky thinks about it, swallowing at the immediate flutter of unease in his chest. What would he do? It comes all too easily. “Fill in the gaps. Keep my head down. Stay out of trouble.”

“Okay,” Sam says, frowning. “And Steve?”

“Steve?” Bucky almost laughs. “He used to be a foot shorter, and still couldn’t keep his head down. Of course he’s not going to lay low. Of course he’s up to something.”

“So,” Sam says, nodding slowly. “He _is_ looking for something.”

“Or someone, yeah,” Bucky says. He combs a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head. He blinks at Sam, wondering out loud, “What would an ex-Hydra assassin know about Schmidt?”

“That he’s out there?” Sam says. “What would that mean to an ex-Hydra assassin who used to be Captain America?”

“A hell of a lot,” Bucky says slowly. “I mean, if Steve remembers anything about his life before Hydra...Schmidt is one mission he’ll want to finish.”

Bucky takes a few swigs from his beer. There’s some comfort in the taste, an illusion of drunkenness somewhere down the line. Sam is reaching for his beer when an urgent knocking on the door stops him. They both eye the large metal door with suspicion, despite the new apartment having attracted no trouble so far. Bucky heads to the door, Sam close behind but out of sight from the vantage point of whoever’s knocking. Bucky unlocks and slides the door back.

“Agent Hill,” Bucky says on seeing Fury’s and now Coulson’s most trusted agent, Maria Hill. Sam joins Bucky at his side and they both frown at her standing before them looking incredibly serious. “I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.”

“There’s a spaceship headed towards Earth, and we have no idea why,” she says. “This was quicker than a phone call. The quinjet’s being prepped, the others are waiting for you at HQ. I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready.”

Bucky waits for her to be out of earshot before he says, “Another spaceship, huh?”

Sam shrugs. “Last one wasn’t really a spaceship. It was more of a space...monster...ship.”

Bucky nods. “I stand corrected.”

Despite the hurry to assemble, the Avengers spend most of their time in wait, the quinjet hovering up high enough to blast into space if needed. Tony is at the controls with Rhodey next to him, running an assortment of queries on the dashboard. Clint and Sam are in the corner, looking intense about something, and Nat, Bucky realises is headed right towards him with amusement perched on her lips.

“Captain,” she says, taking a seat next to him.

“Agent,” Bucky says, smiling at her. He lifts his chin slightly in the direction of Clint and Sam. “What’s happening over there?”

Natasha looks in their direction and smiles. “Oh, you know, just spreading more rumours about your interest in the Prince of Wakanda.”

“He’s a beautiful man,” Bucky says dryly, “what do you want from me?”

Natasha smiles. “It’s no fun if you go along with it.”

“Exactly,” Bucky says. He gives her a long appreciative look, smiling at her. “You two doing okay?”

Natasha looks in Clint’s direction, smiling a little. “He’s my best friend. I’m not sure it gets better than that.”

“But you still think I’m prettier, right?” Bucky deadpans.

Natasha tilts her head at him, scowling. “ _Of course_.”

“Oh!” Tony says, holding up a hand. “Scanners are finally picking up some noise. Looks like we hit the right frequency.”

Everyone moves, crowding behind Tony’s seat. Bucky can see on a projected screen the peaks and troughs of interference accompanying the sound of static which overlays a voice that keeps breaking up. Tony’s fingers are flying across a keyboard and Bucky can see the frequency being modulated, hear the static shifting, the sound of a voice slowly being isolated. When the voice finally becomes clear enough to hear the message, there’s silence in the quinjet.

_“...Thor, God of Thunder, King of the Asgardians, Champion of Sakaar-”_

_“Really?”_

_“We fought, I won, I was pretty clear on that. Yeah, anyway, people of Earth, if you can get a message to the Avengers, that would be great. Um...bye. Okay, stop...stop poking me!”_

_“Uh, hey man, I think you’re still broadcasting.”_

_“Oh shit...sorry. Sorry! Bye! Call us!”_

There’s silence for the longest time before Tony finally says, “You all heard him say Thor, right?”

Rhodey is nodding slowly. “I believe we did.”

“Great,” Tony says, pulling the keyboard closer, and simultaneously sliding his fingers down a projected screen. “I’d hate to crank call the wrong God of Thunder.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love Ragnarok, what can I say.

The ship is huge, a dark floating city that glows at night like a bright star, just left of the moon. Seeing it from afar is one thing, but actually being on board is another. Next to Bucky, Sam has been wearing the expression he wears when he doesn’t want to be read, but Bucky notes the occasional blink here, eyes widening there. They both spend at least ten minutes talking to someone called Korg, during which Sam nods and smiles his way through the conversation, looking absolutely unruffled. As soon as Korg is gone, Sam’s hand smacks Bucky against his chest, making him grimace. Sam looks to him and says, “Dude’s made of _rocks_.”

Bucky’s nodding, ignoring that Sam’s hand is now gripping him a little, his friend scowling in thought. Bucky frowns. “I’m not sure I want to know what happened to Thor’s eye. You know that’s not a good story.”

"You think he has, like, rock organs? I mean, how does _that_ work?” Sam asks, shaking his head.

“Bruce is real jittery,” Bucky says, thinking back to when the quinjet landed in the ship's bay and the Avengers stepped off to greet their friends.

“What does someone like that even eat?” Sam muses, his hand idly sitting on Bucky’s chest.

“I like Thor’s new haircut,” Bucky remarks, thinking back to _that_ surprise. “Suits him.”

“You’re just a pair of apes of groping around in the dirt, aren’t you?” Bucky and Sam roll their eyes at the same time and turn around to find a grinning Loki who raises his hand in a still wave and grins, greeting them both with, “Boys.”

“You look good for a dead guy,” Sam observes.

“I’m feeling much better, thank you,” Loki says with a nod.

“What happened?” Bucky asks. “They kick you out of hell?”

Loki, always happy to regale listeners with feats of his own daring, doesn’t even hesitate to tell them, “Simple really. I manipulated the aether on the ship, forcing a pocket of reality inside out. Both aether and ship are now out there somewhere, in a universe not of our knowing, looking like a gutted rat.”

“Gross,” Sam says flatly.

“I, of course, made my escape before then,” Loki says.

“Returning to Asgard where he proceeded to trick our father into senility so he could masquerade as Odin and rule over Asgard,” Thor says, coming up behind Loki, before clapping a hand on his brother’s shoulder, giving him a smile accompanied by a flinty look.

Loki shakes his head, smiling and waving the comment away. “It was nothing really.”

“You are such a dick, man,” Sam says, shaking his head.

“He is,” Thor agrees with a sigh, nodding. “He really is. _But_ , he is my brother, and without him I could not have saved Asgard.”

“I thought Asgard blew up,” Bucky says.

“It did,” Thor says, scowling slightly.

“And I’m pretty sure I heard he lit the fuse,” Sam says, pointing at Loki with a flick of his eyes.

“Guilty as charged,” Loki says with another grin, holding up his hands. 

Thor withdraws his arm from around Loki’s shoulders, aiming a deepened scowl at Sam and Bucky. “It’s complicated.”

They all lapse into awkward silence, except for Loki who just watches and smiles, clearly enjoying the awkwardness. Sam breaks first, patting Thor on the arm, “Good to have you back, man.”

“I really like your hair,” Bucky says. Thor never one to dwell on awkwardness smiles appreciatively, telling Bucky, “A scary old man did it.”

“Ain’t it always,” Sam says with a smile and nod, asking after a entirely too small pause of restraint, “So what’s the deal with the rock guy?”

Thor’s of no help on the rock guy, telling Sam ‘Oh, Korg? Yeah, he’s made of rocks. It’s really weird’. They walk around the ship a little more, mostly because Thor is indulging them, having noticed they look twice at things that are probably mundane to him. Bucky is struck by how he’s never noticed that Thor’s greatest strength seems to be that he is kind in a very human way. Then again, Bucky has always had a welcoming attitude when it comes to blue-eyed blond guys with bright smiles. He’s aware he’s more than a little biased.

“I’m sorry about your father,” Bucky says quietly, as the Avengers and Asgardians are busy taking their seats around a large table in one of the ship’s meeting halls, a luxurious long room with a large window pointing at a black field peppered with stars.

Thor swings his seat slightly in Bucky’s direction, thanking him without words, giving him a small smile, patting Bucky’s knee. His eyes though, they are absolutely coloured with sadness. Bucky recognises it immediately, not entirely sure how, but he does. Thor’s hand is back on his own knee, splayed and idle. Bucky reaches over and pats it with his loosely fisted hand. Thor looks at the fist, and then at Bucky, frowning. After a moment the corner of his mouth lifts, and so does some of that sadness in his eyes. Grinning a little, Thor reaches out and gives Bucky a pat on the back.

“ _So!_ Let’s start with this guy right here,” Tony says from across the table, pointing at a serene Loki seated opposite. “What is happening here?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Loki replies calmly. “I’m an Avenger now.”

“No you’re not!” too many voices snap at the same time. Clint and Natasha are glaring daggers at Loki, like they might just jump the table and strangle the Asgardian.

“What’s an Avenger?” Everyone looks to the corner of the room where a woman with interesting face markings on her brown skin is sulkily appraising them all, whilst leaning against the wall looking dangerous despite looking bored.

“These guys,” Thor says, pointing his finger in a lazy manner at the people around the table. “And me. We...we’ve avenged a lot of stuff. It’s all very heroic.”

“Is it like the Revengers?” she asks Bruce.

“Uh…” Bruce looks at Thor who nods back at him. “Yeah. Pretty much. Fighting. Monsters. Epic proportions of confusion and anxiety.”

“I’m in,” she says, shrugging and adding, “It’s not like I have a job anymore.”

Thor grins, looking all too pleased. Bucky leans and asks, “Who the hell is this?”

“Brunnhilde. She’s a Valkyrie,” Thor whispers back. “She’s amazing.”

“And she’s _just_ damaged enough to join Earth’s mightiest heroes,” Loki says, for everyone’s ears. The _Valkyrie_ glares at him. “I should know. I’ve seen what's inside her head.”

Brunnhilde doesn’t waste time getting into a war of words. She’s across the room in seconds, crouched on the table with a sharp dagger pointed at Loki’s throat. Loki lets out a nervous laugh and says, “Just a little joke between friends.”

“So is this knife,” Brunnhilde says with a smile devoid of nerves or anger - she really seems to be into the idea of sticking a knife in Loki. Loki smiles, holding his hands up to broadcast his surrender.

Tony gets up from where he’s sitting and bends sideways to get Brunnhilde’s attention, telling her, “You’re hired. When can you start? Can you start with _him_?”

“People,” Rhodey says, pulling Tony back into his chair. “ _Please_. Ma’am? If you could maybe hold off on killing that pain in the ass until the end of the meeting, I’d really appreciate it.”

Brunnhilde frowns at Rhodey, before a pleased smile stretches across her face. She looks back at Loki and knocks the handle of her blade against his forehead, jumping off the table and falling into an empty chair, Loki mouthing ‘ow’ silently before settling back in his chair. Both he and Brunnhilde exchange openly scathing looks with each other and Bucky is already beginning to feel fed up of space, spaceships, and space idiots.

Rhodey gets the meeting on track, looking at Thor and raising his eyebrows. “So...what did we miss?”

Thor leans back and explains: “Well, as I’ve already explained to some of you, after the Dark Elves came to Midgard and I saw the power of the aether, I returned to Asgard to speak with my father. The aether, the Tesseract, and the stone powering Loki’s sceptre were three of six powerful elements that are best kept apart. In the hands of the wrong person, all six elements together could bring about unspeakable chaos. So, I took my father's leave to find out more about the stones. Or at least I thought I was taking my father's leave." 

Next to Thor, Loki grins widely and shamelessly, Thor continuing on from Loki masquerading as the King of Asgard, to the story of Hela sending Thor and Loki to a planet called Sakar, not to mention them finding Hulk there serving his time as a champion, ending with them all escaping with Brunnhilde to save Asgard, only to orchestrate its demise.

“Wow,” Clint says. “That’s a hell of a story. One question. How the hell did Bruce end up in a galaxy far far away?”

Bruce shakes his head. “I dunno. One second I was in a pod under the snake ship, next second there’s this red crackling and I’m falling through the sky onto some planet that turns out to be the galactic garbage disposal.”

“The aether,” Thor says. Loki nods next to him. “The pod must have been touched by a tendril of the aether’s energy, causing it to jump erratically through space and time. From what I know of Sakar, it seems a hotspot for the lost and discarded.”

At least three people attempt a joke about their socks, overlapping each other and just looking plain stupid, whilst Bucky stares at them all. Rhodey reels them all back in by saying, “Okay, look. Two things. One, these stones, we need to know more about them, if the remaining ones still pose a threat to Earth. As for your people, it might take a few days before we can start thinking about relocating them.”

“You have my gratitude,” Thor says with a smile. “And if what you offer is not satisfactory, we will set this vessel down on the moon until we are decided on what to do.”

“You...you can’t just settle on the Moon,” Rhodey says with a laugh.

Thor just smiles, indicating that he has every intention of doing what he wants. Next to him, Loki looks far too pleased, proud perhaps. His gaze turns towards Thor a few times during the rest of the briefing, eyes shielding private thoughts as he watches when Thor leaves with Tony and Rhodey, Valkyrie following with Nat and Clint, Sam behind then, patting Bruce on the back. Something has shifted in Loki’s demeanour, Bucky thinks, and maybe it’s the same something that’s shifted sadness into Thor’s eyes.

“What’s your deal?” Bucky asks quietly.

Loki arches a brow at Bucky, noting that there are only two of them in the room. “My deal? Do you honestly believe your intellect is adequate enough to understand my _deal_?”

“Honestly?” Bucky says. He shrugs and answers, “No.”

Loki snorts with amusement, watching Bucky with sly eyes. He drums his fingers lightly on the tabletop, the sound oddly harmonious, perfectly measured. After a while, he gives Bucky a bored look. “You need not worry. I have no designs on your world. A god does not step down from a golden palace to rule over a ditch.”

“So what was New York about?” Bucky asks.

“A momentary lapse,” Loki says, looking away, his expression turning tight, his fingers no longer tapping. He looks at Bucky and smiles. "Any more questions?”

“One,” Bucky says. Loki actually lets out a laugh, grinning. He waves his hand magnanimously, inviting Bucky to speak. “What did you mean when you said you’d been inside her head? You know, your friend with the pointy knife.”

Loki is smiling, looking somewhere between pleased and intrigued. “Precisely what those words imply.”

“I think we established I’m not all that bright,” Bucky says. He offers a wink and says, “More of a pretty face with a little attitude.”

“More than just a little attitude, I see,” Loki remarks, basking, Bucky thinks, enjoying the attention. “It means, my dear Captain, that for a moment, our minds were connected. I was able to draw out her memories, watch them as if they were my own. Of course, it meant having her relive them too. She did not take kindly to that.”

Bucky swallows, his mouth going a little dry. “Can you make someone remember if they’ve lost their memories?”

Loki shrugs. “Depends. A Valkyrie has a mind made of iron and stone, a mind that can be probed without causing too much harm. A human on the other hand. There’s a chance of making a complete mess there.”

“What if it was me?” Bucky asks.

Loki is openly eyeing Bucky, with an almost seductive gaze. “Well, you’re no ordinary human, are you?”

“What if someone wiped all my memories?” Bucky asks. “Could you bring them back?”

Loki leans in a little, head tilting as he looks somewhere above Bucky’s eyes. His hand comes up, his finger tracing a line from Bucky’s temple to his forehead. “A so-called _wiped_ memory is likely to have been relocated to a place from where it can still be retrieved, even float back up of its own accord. If you think you’re missing a piece of a puzzle, I'm sure I could find it.”

Loki’s finger taps on the front of Bucky’s forehead. Bucky pulls back just a little. “Not me. Someone I know.”

Loki grins, leaning back. “The Widow? Of course. Her head must be filled with all kinds of delights.”

“No.” Bucky shakes his head. “You don’t know him.”

“Then show me,” Loki says. Bucky frowns, shaking his head at not understanding the question. Loki lifts up his hand and prods two fingers hard against Bucky’s forehead. “ _Show_ me.”

 _Nope_ , Bucky thinks, exactly a second before Loki’s cool palm slots over Bucky’s forehead. Everything slows down as if life is just a picture pasted onto the side of a giant revolving barrel. He can hear a sound, muffled, metal thundering below his feet. Walls move slowly past him, his feet useless, and fire blooms from somewhere, unfolding slowly like the petals of an angry flower. Bucky blinks and realises he’s on his back, looking up at the blue of the sky above him, the clouds looking thick where their curves are dark. Everything seems to cast steep and dark shadows, as if part of his memories have turned to metal.

The world shifts around him to reveal a thick metal line drawn into the air, curving away from him into eternity, the side of a train that seems to never end. Steve is strangely suspended before that line, he and Bucky staring into each other’s eyes. For a moment it seems as if they’re drifting closer, but it’s a trick, because Bucky’s hand is reaching for Steve, and Steve’s fingers never find him no matter how hard they try to get a hold of each other. Bucky’s heart slows to a heavy thud, like it might stop completely. Steve is drifting away agonisingly slow, falling backwards into shadows reaching out from the white snow beneath as Bucky watches, his eyes unable to close, their hands still reaching out for each other.

Bucky falls on the ground hard as if time has suddenly sped up, letting go of him mid-spin. A strangled sound tumbles from his mouth, his breath stuttering in his lungs, his face hot, sweat breaking out across his skin. Bucky’s hands shake under him as he pushes himself up, blinking away hot tears.

“Captain?”

Bucky twists around to see Loki standing at a safe distance, watching him with curiosity. Bucky lunges from the ground with a growl, fist first, slamming his knuckles hard into Loki’s jaw, sending him into a sprawl on the floor. Loki grimaces up at him, massaging his offended jaw as Bucky stands over him, breathing hard, and livid.

“In hindsight,” Loki says, pausing to flex his jaw, “I should have seen that coming.”


	9. Chapter 9

Bucky walks slowly down the narrow carriage. No matter how fast he goes, how much distance he covers, the carriage continues to stretch on forever. When he finds Steve, even then everything moves like the slow drip of molasses, the way he turns towards a blast that hits his shield, the way the force of the next blow sends him flying through the hole in the carriage. It all moves slow enough to fool Bucky he can outrun these events. But he doesn’t. He reaches, screaming, “Steve!”

The night air is cool around him, but not mountain cool. Bucky hears the sharp sound of a car horn somewhere in the distance. He lowers his hand which has tried to reach out beyond his dream to catch a man who fell decades ago. He doesn’t bother going back to sleep, making his way out onto the fire escape where the metal is cold under his bare feet, and the breeze chilled against his bare shoulders, the cotton of his pyjama bottoms doing little to block cold from the rest of his body. It’s unpleasant, but a part of him is adamant that he doesn’t deserve to be comfortable.

He spends the rest of the night there, lighting up a cigarette as the sun begins to rise. There’s a coughing sound in the corner of his mind and Bucky looks to the side, into a shadow where he thinks he sees Steve, smaller, sickly, infuriatingly defiant.

“You coulda’ said something,” Bucky had groused a lifetime ago. “Jeez.”

“S’not bothering me.” Steve had scowled, offended, whilst his chest shuddered with the effort of trying to hold in a cough. Bucky was annoyed. Fine, he had thought, I’ll stand here and smoke this, see how unbothered you are. Then he had dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his shoe all the same, shaking his head. Steve looked even more offended. “What d’you do that for?”

Bucky shrugged. “Should stop. Betty doesn’t like the taste.”

“She doesn’t smoke,” Steve said with a frown. Bucky grinned at him, and Steve rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t talk that way about your girl. It’s not respectful, Buck.”

That was his mother talking through him. Bucky had heard it since they were kids, kitchen sermons on being good and doing good. A real man doesn’t use his fists to hurt and to bully, Bucky once heard her tell Steve. She had sounded desperate and when Steve came out onto the stoop where Bucky was waiting for him, his eyes were pink, his expression devastated. Bucky had looked past him into the dark of the hallway behind the open door. There was a fearful silence that stretched all the way out onto the street.

Bucky smiled and slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders as he said in an all too cheery tone, “Come on. I got a treat for you today.”

“Remember the time I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?” Bucky would ask about that treat years later.

“Yeah, and I threw up?” Steve would say.

“This isn’t payback is it,” Bucky would ask, Steve telling him, “Now why would I do that?”

Because you’re still a little punk, Bucky wanted to say. Instead he just watched Steve being Captain America. Watched the way he fought, the way his body thanks to the serum had finally caught up with his iron guts. Watched him right until he fell.

Bucky flicks the cigarette away, sending glowing embers into the air which dance momentarily before the rising sun, wondering if it’s possible to pull a man out of a seventy year deep abyss.

*

Bucky slams his shield into the face of a Hydra operative, cracking the man’s visor in the process. Someone comes at him from the side, but he’s already turning, shield up, hard left hook, and kick to the stomach. There’s gunfire behind him and he turns in time for the shield to deflect bullets aimed at him, running in the direction of the shooter. Before he can reach the gunman, Sam swoops out of the sky and kicks the Hydra goon in the head, sending him crashing to the ground.

Sam flies over Bucky’s head, landing on the other side leaving them back to back. Bucky shoots off a few rounds from behind the cover of his shield. Beyond them, there’s the sound of thunder, and everything metal in the yard around the large brick warehouse crackles. Lightning flashes on the other sides of the small windows of the warehouse, and the night-time clouds are angrily thundering above. A chopper arrives, and gunfire from above pelts down towards Bucky and Sam, who take cover with shield and wings, until a a figure crackling with thunder leaps through the air and onto the side of the chopper.

Bucky takes a shaky breath, looking up at Thor. “I love that guy.”

“Yeah, he’s a dreamboat, come on,” Sam says, sprinting towards the warehouse. When more lightning strikes and thunder sounds, Bucky doesn’t bother looking back. He knows Thor’s taking care of the punks guarding the place.

“We’re in,” Nat says after a click in their earpieces. “We’re heading into the lower levels. Looks like most of the guards are concentrated on the outside.”

“Got it,” Bucky says. “We’re on our way.”

The warehouse is dark, electricity cut, and it’s filled with towers of crates, walkways suspended above them, and blind spots in every direction. Bucky nods to Sam silently and they both split up. Bucky hooks his shield onto his back, putting both hands on his gun, moving slow, eyes and ears open. He’s halfway to an elevator when he hears the gunfire, twisting in its direction and running.

“Sam?” he says, finger clicking his earpiece. Before Sam can answer, he sees two men in black sprinting past him at top speed, followed by Hulk who is smashing the corner of every stacked crate in pursuit. Bucky watches Hulk chase them out, and clicks his earpiece again. “Never mind.”

Bucky follows a trail of chaos all the way to the elevator, Sam stepping out from behind another aisle of crates to join him. They step into the elevator, both of them cautiously still looking in all directions as they do so, before letting the metal doors clang shut.

“Where we headed?” Bucky says, finger on earpiece.

“Sub-basement 2,” Nat responds.

“Sub-basement 2.” Bucky prods a button, Sam nodding next to him.

When they exit the elevator, there’s another nice trail of chaos to follow all the way to the rest of their team. Clint is in a rusty corridor waiting near a hole in the wall that looks like it used to be a locked door. Bucky nods to him and Clint says, “What took you so long?”

“This guy takes forever to get ready,” Bucky says pointing to Sam as they walk into the room, which is cluttered with an assortment of strange devices, and worktops covered with dead computer screens and wiring.

“Really?” Sam says. “Look at this guy’s hair. Even Hydra couldn’t knock it out of shape,”

Bucky runs his fingers through his hair for the hell of it, smiling at Sam, Clint commenting, “Yeah, you guys are a real riot.”

Clint leads them to the end of the room, where there’s another doorway. On the other side are Tony and Nat. She’s prodding at a keyboard, the screen before her throwing up small boxes of objection. Tony is on the other side of the table, faced away from her and scowling at a large square structure made of what looks like copper mesh. It looks like the beginnings of something, a wire framework, with space for something in the middle.

“What is it?” Bucky asks.

“No idea,” Tony replies. “We need schematics. At this point it could be the beginnings of a winnebago.”

“A Hydra winnebago?” Sam says. “Sure, I buy that.”

“Yeah,” Tony says slowly. “The bastards are building something.”

“Crap,” Nat says, and everyone turns to see her close her eyes for a moment and breathe. When she’s had her second of calm, she says, “Yeah, I couldn’t stop it. It’s wiped. The whole drive’s gone.”

Bucky looks around the room. It’s empty except for the mesh structure and the computer on an otherwise clear desk. The walls are stone, the ground dirt. This room is the beginning of something. “There’s got to be enough in this place to give us some idea of what they’re doing here. Let’s make sure this place is Hydra free, get it on lock down, and bring in a cleaning crew. Sam?”

“Yeah, with you,” Sam says, already at his side as they head back out, Clint taking up his lookout post.

They make their way back into the elevator and Bucky jabs the button to go up. The elevator doors close, the elevator jolts, and then does nothing. Bucky jabs the button again. This time it starts moving, but downwards. Bucky frowns at Sam.

“I thought we were as deep as this place goes,” Sam says.

“Hydra,” Bucky says, lifting up his shield as Sam arms both his pistols.

The elevator comes to a stop. Sam and Bucky look at each other. The doors slide open, with both Sam and Bucky poised to fight, only to find Loki looking bored. Sam straightens up and says, “I thought the deal was you stay with Thor.”

“Yes, to aid him in subduing these Hydra chimps, which we have done. Easily,” Loki says. “He said that as my talents naturally lean towards mischief, I ought to put them to use and see what mischief has been made here.”

“And?” Sam prompts.

“You have just descended lower than what is indicated to be the lowest floor on those markings,” Loki says pointing at the panel in the elevator. “Am I really going to have to spell this out?”

Bucky and Sam both turn away from Loki, looking into the elevator, Bucky rolling his eyes and sighing. Sam discreetly shrugging at him.

“There’s a hidden controller within the wall there,” Loki says. Bucky and Sam turn back towards him to see him smile and add, “I of course used the controls down here to bring you down to my level.”

“Interesting choice of words,” Sam says to a smug looking Loki.

“Stop playing games,” Bucky says curtly. “Is there something down here besides you?”

Loki gives Bucky an even look and then tilts his head towards the end of the dark corridor. “This way, Captain.”

They accompany Loki in quiet down a narrow hall that smells of metal and chemicals, Bucky at Loki’s side, with Sam following silently and carefully behind.

“I see you’re still upset by our last encounter,” Loki says. He might be smirking, or maybe he just has that kind of mouth. Bucky just clenches his jaw and ignores the Asgardian. “You surprise me, you really do. I didn’t think you’d be so willing to allow me into someone else’s head before finding out yourself what it entails. I misjudged you, clearly. This way.”

Loki walks on ahead as Bucky stops in his tracks, heavy realisation turning to rocks in his boots. Sam looks at Loki up ahead and then at Bucky, asking him, “What the hell’s he talking about?”

“Nothing,” Bucky says.

“Are you kidding me?” Sam asks, a look of disbelief on his face. “I _heard_ what he said.”

Bucky takes a breath and it shudders on the way out. “Look. Later, okay?”

“Fine, but preferably before things go FUBAR,” Sam says, walking off to catch up with Bucky. As if things haven’t been FUBAR since he woke up on Zola’s table, Bucky thinks, following behind. He catches up just in time to see Sam go through a doorway into a brightly lit room and exclaim, “The hell?”

Bucky picks up his pace, catching up stepping into a large room, every inch of it covered with white tiles that have a strange metallic sheen, the rest of the room occupied with stacks of gleaming metal blocks. Bucky feels a strange ripple in his chest, and realises it’s something to do with his shield, a metallic vibration that sets his teeth on edge. Bucky frowns at the stacks of metal, adding two and two into a worrying four.

“Is this of importance?” Loki asks, raising a brow.

“A room filled with vibranium?” Bucky says. “Yeah. I’d say so.”

*

“Tony’s got to be losing his shit over this,” Bucky says, as Sam twists and blocks him.

Bucky jumps back, darts forward, feigning left as Sam throws a right hook, which Bucky uses to grab him and throw him to the mat. Sam lands on his back hard, groaning. Bucky holds out his hand pulls Sam onto his feet, patting him on the back as he marvels how easy it is to forget sometimes that Sam is running on pure skill and guts, with no serum to speed up recovery. Bucky nods to the bench by the wall, indicating they take a break, and they both head over, sitting down with identical thumps, Bucky grabbing a towel, Sam emptying his bottle of water.

“Doesn’t matter what Tony thinks,” Sam says. “We can’t in good conscience keep that amount of vibranium. There’s no way Hydra got their hands on that much vibranium without a whole lot of lying, cheating, and killing. Tony knows it too.”

“Yeah well, I bet Tony’s still losing his shit over this,” Bucky says.

They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes. Bucky downs his bottle of water and Sam wipes a towel over his face. But then comes a forced silence, and Bucky knows Sam is carefully considering his next question. Bucky looks at the bunched up towel in his hand which sit heavy in his lap.

“Loki said he was able to look inside the head of Thor's Valkyrie friend, see her memories. I asked him if he could do that with someone who might have lost his memories. Then he showed me exactly how it works.”

“Jesus,” Sam says in a whisper. “Buck.”

Bucky looks down at his hands, fingers digging into the fabric of the towel. “He’d want to know who he is.”

“Or maybe you can’t stand the idea of him not knowing who you are,” Sam says. Bucky doesn’t answer, can’t answer. “Because he’s the only one who really knew you, right? The real Bucky Barnes, not the guy who pretends to be Captain America. Right?”

“It’s not like that,” Bucky says roughly, scowling because it’s _exactly_ like that.

“Isn’t it?” Sam challenges. “It’s okay to want that, man. To get back a missing part of your life. But what about Steve? You have no idea what he remembers, and what he wants.”

Sam’s right, of course he is, and Bucky has no logical counter to what Sam’s saying. All he has is: “I know him. He’d want to remember.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, but Bucky feels the pause in his train of thought from the way his body stiffens just fractionally from the immediate realisation of something. Bucky remains quiet with his eyes trained on the anxious grey mess of the towel in his hands.

“Okay,” Sam says. “But do you really want Loki inside your friend’s head?”

Bucky lapses into silence, thinking back to Loki’s brief invasion. It had been a strange sensation, watching his own memories through the eyes of Loki’s mind. The memories had felt fresh for days after, as if Steve had only just died, filling Bucky with panic that he might start to unravel now, even though he’d managed to stop himself back then.

“Not if there’s a better way,” Bucky says. Sam nods, looking a little relieved. Bucky gives him a look, telling him, “I promised him he’d always have me by his side. I meant it.”

Sam reaches out to squeeze Bucky’s shoulder, nodding. “I know.”

Bucky nods, patting Sam’s hand where it sits on his shoulder, before he gets up, throwing his towel over his shoulder.

“Hey,” Sam says, prompting Bucky to turn and look at his friend. “You know you’ve got people by your side too, right?”

Bucky smiles at the way Sam is sitting there with his arms folded across his chest, a determined set to his jaw. _Punk,_ Bucky wants to call him, _you’re just like him._ “I know.”

Sam gets up, a small smile on his face. “Okay,” he says. “I need food.”

“I got food,” Bucky says with a nod, glad they’re done with the conversation.

They walk side by side to the stairs that lead from the first floor workout room to the second floor apartment in the small warehouse building Bucky’s still calling home. Bucky’s halfway up when he realises Sam’s not following. Frowning, he turns back to look down, seeing Sam at the foot of the stairs, his phone in hand, eyes on the screen.

“What?” Bucky asks.

Sam looks up at Bucky. There’s something like confusion etched across his forehead. Bucky waits, his heart beginning to trip anxiously.

“We got a lead on Steve,” Sam says, frown deepening just a little. “He’s in Sokovia.”

Bucky’s quiet for a second, his body feeling a little heavy, the world around him teetering and threatening to spin. “Your lead know what he’s doing in Sokovia?”

Sam looks at his phone. “Says he’s laying low.”

“Why Sokovia?” Bucky asks.

“I dunno,” Sam says. “Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”


	10. Chapter 10

Bucky has always trusted his gut, and even before they set down in Sokovia, Bucky knows he’s not going to find Steve here. The concrete feeling in his gut only worsens the closer he and Sam get to the address Sam’s lead has given them. They try to be as inconspicuous as possible as they make their way to the apartment. It’s in a quiet concrete building where the elevator isn’t working, and the stairwell smells of too many odours to identify. Steve’s apartment is right at the top of the building, its pale door laughing at Bucky’s hope and fear.

Sam knocks on the door and they wait for a response. More knocking. Nothing. Sam looks at Bucky, and Bucky nods, keeping watching as Sam breaks into the apartment. The door opens and they can see all of Steve’s world, except for one closed door, the bathroom perhaps. Not the bedroom, because in the corner by the far wall is a small bed that looks like an army cot with a flat pillow and a rough blank. There are no couches or TVs, nothing that says comfort. Between the cot and the kitchen at the other end of the room is a small round wooden table with two chairs, covered in newspapers. Bucky turns towards the kitchen on the other side of an aging counter. The appliances look tired.

“We’re too late,” Sam says.

Bucky nods, glancing around the room. The air smells still and stale, no lingering odours of food or sweat. Sam sits down at the table, rifling through the mess of newspapers as Bucky continues walking around for a sign that Steve was here. He opens the other door in the apartment, finding a tiny bathroom with a tub, sink and toilet all crammed in too close together. None of this would have bothered Steve, Bucky thinks, that is if he remembers the last place he lived in. There’s a mirror in front of the sink reflecting Bucky’s disappointment back at him. He wonders how often Steve looked into this same mirror, and wonders nonsensically if a mirror can hold something of the person it saw last.

“Buck?” Sam calls from the other room. Bucky gladly leaves his maudlin reflection behind to join Sam who is eyeing a crumpled scrap of paper in his hand. He takes out his phone and starts tapping in whatever he’s reading off the paper.

“What’s that?” Bucky asks.

Sam hands him the scrap and says, “Take a look.”

Bucky looks at the piece of paper which seems to have been torn out of a small notepad. There’s a line of numbers he understands immediately. “Coordinates.”

When Bucky looks up Sam is frowning at the screen. He holds it up and tells Bucky, “Siberia.”

*

The atmosphere in the briefing room is tense. Tony hasn’t spoken for about ten minutes, just listening, Rhodey asking all the questions. Nat is watching Bucky, closely and with concern and Bucky can’t stand it because it feels like pity. Next to her, Clint is stealing glances at Nat, and at the end of the table both Rhodey and Bruce keep looking at Tony with worry. Bucky senses Sam shift, his head turning to look in Bucky’s direction, and it seems to complete this giant worry-circle with Bucky wishing no one here had to worry about anything.

“Tony?” Bruce asks quietly. “You’re quiet.”

“My friends here,” Tony finally says, waving a hand in Sam and Bucky’s direction, “jetted off to Sokovia under the pretense of gathering intel on Hydra just because Barnes here could look up his old buddy, only to come back with the location of what is obviously a Hydra trap in Siberia. There’s _a lot_ to process.”

“He’s not Hydra,” Bucky says.

“How do you know that?” Tony asks. “Has he tried to make contact with you? Has he actually told you where he’s at right now?”

“Come on, man,” Sam says, looking affronted, “the guy spent over seventy years being brainwashed to forget his own identity. You really think he’s going to be calling up an old friend to touch base?”

“I saw him at Peggy’s funeral,” Bucky says, feeling a ball of something tighten and harden in his stomach.

Tony is frowning, looking just a little surprised. “And? Did he say anything?”

“He was gone before I could get to him,” Bucky says.

Tony looks from Bucky to Sam. Sam doesn’t say anything, which prompts Tony to ask, “Are you sure it was him?”

Bucky gives Tony an icy look. “It was him.”

Tony looks at Sam. “Sam?”

“It was him,” Sam says. Bucky stares at him, at the outright lie. Sam had seen nothing, and because of Bucky he has committed to a lie that Bucky might have told himself.

“How about we backtrack a little?” Rhodey says, holding up a hand as Tony opens his mouth. “We have these coordinates, and we know from the records Bucky gave us that Steve spent time in Siberia as part of the Winter Soldier program. So those coordinates go somewhere. Maybe somewhere Steve is headed, maybe somewhere Hydra want us to go so they can ambush us. The question is whether we go or not.”

“Oh _of course_ we’re going,” Tony says with exasperation. He scowls in Bucky’s direction and says, “You just should have told me why you were going to Sokovia. In case you forgot, we’re on the same team.”

Tony shakes his head, gets up and leaves swiftly. Bucky takes a deep breath and follows him, catching up in the corridor outside. “Tony. Tony, _wait_.”

“ _What?_ ” Tony says, turning around, eyes mid-roll. When Bucky can’t think of anything to say, Tony says, “We’re friends. You can come to me.”

“He killed your parents,” Bucky says, his words sticking in his throat. “I can’t.”

Tony’s quiet for a moment, his jaw working around something. When he looks at Bucky, it’s with an open and honest expression.

“Did you know, Clint can remember everything he did under Loki’s mind whammy? Well, he can. But, we know it wasn’t him, right?” Bucky nods mutely. “Right. He’s Clint. We love him. We know the _real_ him. So we let it go that he tried to throw Nat off a walkway before she beat him back into reality.”

“Tony-”

“ _Hydra_ killed my parents. At least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself,” Tony says, unable to hide the devastation from his eyes. He shrugs and adds, “You can ask for my help is what I’m saying. My only concern is, is Rogers still Hydra?”

Bucky nods, looking everywhere but at Tony. There’s a lot he wants to say to Tony, and none of it is making it to his mouth. In the end, he offers up a rough, “I should have told you.”

“Yeah, well, shoulda coulda woulda,” Tony says. He lets out a heavy sigh. “ _I_...am going to go for a walk. Just for a minute. Then we can decide how we’re doing this.”

Bucky nods mutely, relieved for Tony’s help, and feeling guilty that Tony is willing to try and put aside Steve’s role in the death of his parents. He opens his mouth for a useless  thank you, interrupted by a loud crack of thunder stops him, the building shaking as if an elephant has just been dropped onto it.

Tony’s eyes narrow into slits as he says, “I swear, if he’s ruined the grass again...”

*

The Avengers set the quinjet down on a snowy plain, a mountain looming on the horizon. There’s only one man-made structure here and there’s no mistake about where they’re heading. Nat, Clint and Bruce stay on the quinjet, observing from afar. Tony, Rhodey, Sam, Bucky and Thor head to the building, its rusted doors not hard to find, large and set into a rock wall.

Tony’s looking at a panel on the wall, prodding it. It still works, and its blinking for a code. “Huh,” Tony says. “I’ll need a minute. Talk amongst yourselves.”

Sam turns to Thor. “How’s the ship?”

“Tis on the moon,” Thor answers with a nod and smile.

“Yeah, we need to talk about that,” Rhodey says.

“I warned you of my intentions,” Thor says in that soft-severe fashion of his.

“You can’t just be putting things on the moon, Thor,” Rhodey says, looking a little exasperated.

“Oh, I think I can,” Thor says, scrunching his face up a little, and then grinning.

“In!” Tony announces as the doors part.

Bucky brings up his shield, everyone else around him gearing up to fight, Rhodey and Tony’s visors up, Sam’s pistols pointed, and Thor’s fingers crackling with energy. They walk inside with Rhodey and Tony illuminating the way. It’s another deserted outpost with shelves and boxes of files, abandoned machinery and equipment, and the debris of a quick exit. As they move along they come to a long corridor that opens into a large chamber.

Bucky looks up to see a high ceiling that seems to go on forever. They’re in some kind of concrete silo. He’s still craning his neck upwards to peer into the dark when dim lights come on with a clunk-clunk-clunk. Bucky turns around to see the chamber properly, veins filling with ice when he sees pods with curved glass tops, each one housing a man inside, tall and blond. Bucky can guess if the men could open their eyes, those eyes would be blue.

“What the hell is this?” Thor murmurs, joining Tony and Rhodey.

Bucky remains rooted to the spot, unable to stop staring at the inhabitants of the pods. Sam steps up next to Bucky and says, “I’ve seen those before. The report on Steve. They used one of those things for cryogenic stasis. It’s how they kept him on ice.”

“Jarvis, get me SHIELD on the phone,” Tony says. “We just found a cave full of Hydra popsicles. And they’re still breathing.”

Bucky slowly breaks away from the group, floating towards a pod without even feeling himself move. He just seems to end up in front of a chamber, staring at a sleeping solder. Even his hair has been cut the way Steve used to wear it.

“Buck?” Sam prods, coming to his side.

Bucky lets out a small strangled laugh. “I guess they found the perfect template for their ubermensch.”

Bucky tunes out most of the chatter when they finally fly back after SHIELD have extracted the pods and their occupants for further examination, as well as the boxes and boxes of files in the facility. No one talks about the pod people, and Bucky knows it’s because of him.

Bucky pushes up a smile to his face and says to Thor, “So you’re on the moon now. How’s that working out?”

“I hear the atmosphere’s not that great,” Tony says from the pilot’s seat.

“Yeah, that’s funny, Tony,” Rhodey says. “You have no idea how many people I have breathing down my neck about this. People can’t just be moving onto the moon.”

“You offered no suitable alternative,” Thor says. “Your people would have the Asgardians scattered. The only home they have left is each other, and I will not have them be parted. Also, we like the moon. Nice view.”

Tony twists around in his seat and narrows his eyes at Thor, slowly bringing up a hand to point his finger at the Asgardian. “It _is_ a nice view, right? Hey, how’s about hosting a shindig so we can impress a friend of ours?”

Thor looks at Clint and Nat. Clint says, “Tony wants you to throw a party on your ship so he can use the opportunity to suck up to someone.”

Thor nods, smiling when he looks at Tony. “I will be glad to arrange a feast for you and whomever you are courting. Pepper was clearly too fine a woman for you. No offence.”

“Taken. Offence taken,” Tony says. “Pepper and I are fine, thanks, but where _is_ Jane these days?”

“It was a mutual dumping,” Thor says sullenly, making Bucky smile a little.

“What do you say, Cap?” Tony asks. “You up for a party on the moon? A certain Wakandan may be in attendance, and several little birds have told me you might be a little taken with the king.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, and then smiles anyway. He looks at Tony and says, “What can I say? I’m a man of expensive tastes.”

Tony looks at Nat. “You’re right. It’s not fun if he plays along.”

Tony swivels back around in his seat, and everyone falls back into chatter, except for Sam who takes up a spot next to Bucky. He nods at him as if to say ‘next time, it’ll be Steve we find’. Bucky nods back, already prepared to be disappointed.

*

Bucky scowls at the half-shadowed Earth with what feels like suspicion. What he’s seeing makes no sense to a part of his mind. This is fiction, a dream of the future where there are flying cars and all kinds of crazy things. Maybe, Bucky wonders for just a moment, he’s actually dreaming. Maybe he’s somewhere deep under the ice, and he’s imagining a place that doesn’t exist. Maybe he’s not even under the ice. Maybe he’s still on Zola’s table, repeating the only things he knows, everything else having turned to a fog under the scientist’s ministrations. He doesn’t even remember what they did to him, only that it happened. Maybe he’s somewhere else altogether.

“It’s small because it’s far away.” Bucky lets out a small sigh and turns away from the window to find Loki standing there with a huge grin on his face. When Bucky doesn’t take the bait, Loki’s expression turns innocent. “You seemed confused.”

Bucky goes back to looking out of the long window that runs down the side of a wall in a corridor of one of the lower decks of the ship occupied by Thor’s Asgardians.

“My brother’s elected to call this place New Asgard,” Loki says, seemingly happy enough to fill in the silence. “He’s always had a flair for originality.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Thor wants his people to feel like this is a home instead of a holding pen. It’s not about originality. It’s about giving a shit.”

“My my, we are full of ire, aren’t we?” Loki says, smiling sweetly. “Besides, I wasn’t talking about the vessel. I meant the rock we’re currently seated on. It was my idea actually. I spoke to Thor of how your _America_ is just filled with old places that were made new on the arrival of outsiders. Based on the history of your people, I assumed no one would mind if we simply renamed the moon.”

Bucky nods, smiling without any humour at all. “You’re a real piece of work.”

“Thank you,” Loki says, before looking Bucky up and down and smiling. Bucky’s expecting him to say something, but he just keeps smiling, saying nothing at all.

Bucky frowns at Loki, shaking his head. “You here just to be a pain in my ass?”

Loki’s eyes slide to the corner, as if he’s thinking hard on those words. Then he just laughs, showing a glint of even teeth. Bucky rolls his eyes as Loki says, “Your friends are missing your presence. I told Thor I would seek you out.”

“Why?” Bucky asks.

“You amuse me,” Loki answers, but he looks just a little sullen. Bucky gives him a look, expectant and impatient. Loki looks somewhere past Bucky, gaze turned inwards. He frowns and says, “My brother’s up there drinking and laughing with your Avengers as if he hasn’t lost everything. I keep waiting for his rage, but nothing.”

Bucky frowns. “You didn’t lose anything?”

Loki’s gaze slides to Bucky, a little sharp, “All I had to lose I lost a long time ago.”

Bucky suggests with some level of boredom, “Or maybe everything you both actually do give a shit about is right here on this ship.”

Loki doesn’t react, his eyes shining like glass, the kind a guy could cut himself on. “It’s delightful that you think you would know the mind of a god. Especially one who’s been _inside_ you.”

Bucky doesn’t give Loki the satisfaction of a reaction. Bucky’s heard worse in his time. He holds Loki’s gaze, waiting for the next barb. It’s almost better than the looks of pity from his friends.

“Are you going to ask me what my deal is again?” Loki asks quietly.

“Pretty sure we’ll find out for ourselves,” Bucky says. “Good or bad.”

“Good. Or bad,” Loki muses, his eyes flicking to the window, trained directly on the that visible part of Earth. “As if there are only two choices.”

Bucky is quiet. Good men can do bad things. Some might choose it, others might be forced into. But good men can do bad things.

Loki, with customary smirk in place, looks at the sight outside the window and tells Bucky, “I’ll tell the others you’re...busy.”

Loki turns to leave and Bucky knows the smartest thing is to let him leave. He’s clenching his jaw on something he shouldn’t say, holding it on his tongue. “I wanna ask you something.”

Loki turns around, brow arched in question. “About?”

Bucky’s sense makes him pause for just a moment before he pushes through and says, “Would you be able to visit a memory and see if it was remembered wrong?”

Loki is frowning, looking deeply intrigued. “I’m not entirely sure. What you saw and what you think you saw might not be so easy to disentangle. Why? What is it you think you’ve seen, or not seen as the case may be?”

“I thought I saw Steve,” Bucky says, thinking back to Peggy’s funeral, a day of so many mixed emotions. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“You think revisiting a memory to prove it was or wasn’t really him will make you less heartsick?” Loki asks. Bucky glares at him, but Loki scoffs, “ _Please_. The last time I was in that head of yours, I left wanting to drown myself.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Bucky asks, but he’s beginning to feel brittle because Loki’s been inside his head, and he’s felt what no one can see.

“Your grief,” Loki says thoughtfully, his gaze peering somewhere past Bucky’s eyes. “It’s unbearable.”

“You know what, forget it,” Bucky says, somehow making his lumpen feet move and take him away from Loki.

“Did he know?” Loki calls out after Bucky. “About the _absolute_ desperation with which you love him?”

Bucky twists around, darting towards Loki, fingers gripping the front of his long coat, slamming his body hard against the wall of iron. He can hear himself panting as his whole body shakes.

“Look at you,” Loki says, his voice an awe-filled whisper. “Even the gods are not gifted such devotion. What’s so special about him that he should inspire such love?”

“Jesus,” Bucky gasps, looking away from Loki, head hanging, fingers curling tighter into the fabric of Loki’s coat. “Stop talking.”

“Do you still want me to look inside your head?” Loki whispers, fearless, reckless. “Who knows what I might find in there.”

Bucky swallows, feeling his grip on Loki weaken. “Is there much left to hide?”

Loki smiles and answers, “No.”

Loki lifts up a hand, long fingers hanging in the periphery of Bucky’s vision. He expects the touch of Loki’s hand on his forehead, but instead feels the cool touch of his palm against the side of his face, thumb just briefly scratching past the corner of Bucky’s mouth as two fingers settle against his temple. They’re still pressed against each other, Bucky holding onto Loki, the Asgardian’s gaze looking paler and paler with every passing second until Bucky realises it’s in his mind, flooding it with a freezing snow white.


	11. Chapter 11

Bucky lurches from his bed with a long gasp that burns his lungs. It’s cold, mountain air cold. He can’t stop shaking, grimacing into the dark as he sees Steve falling away even after his eyes are open.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Bucky says roughly.

“ _Nothing_ rarely drags people screaming from their slumber.”

Bucky sniffs, angrily wiping away wetness at the corner of his eyes, cursing the way he can’t stop the tremors in his lips, his chin twitching.

“Revisiting the same memories over and over, it’s tantamount to stopping a wound from closing.”

Bucky swallows, wiping a hand over his mouth. One memory is always at the forefront of his mind. A look on Steve’s face that is scored into the surface of Bucky’s mind. His mouth just slightly open in surprise. His eyes wide, so blue. Bucky used to think they were too pretty for a man. Maybe thinking that made it okay to...it doesn’t matter now. Steve didn’t seem afraid when he fell. It makes Bucky so angry.

“Do you have a memory you can’t let go of?” Bucky asks quietly.

The light comes on, banishing the dark. Bucky looks to the side to see Loki sitting, the blanket bunching up in his lap. He looks cold-to-the-touch pale, but there’s heat in his eyes, only noticeable when looking real close. Loki grins and says, “Too many to choose from.”

“Show me,” Bucky says.

Loki laughs. “To what end? What would you do with my festering wounds, when you have so many of your own?”

“I showed you mine, you show me yours,” Bucky says, sick of his own wounds.

Loki leans in slowly, head tilted as he peers into Bucky’s eyes. His hand touches the side of Bucky’s face and Bucky’s mind whites out until he’s wearing shackles around his wrists and carrying chains, looking up at his one-eyed father. _Your birthright was to die as a child. Cast out onto a frozen rock. If I had not taken you in you would not be here now to hate me._ A cold wind whips across Bucky’s face and Odin is looking at him, standing close. _I love you, both my sons._

Bucky’s eyes snap open when Loki pulls away suddenly, leaving Bucky’s head spinning. a nauseous feeling creeping out of his gut. Loki is looking away, jaw clenched. He somehow laughs around his visible anger. “I can’t seem to think of one memory without the other.”

Bucky understands. He can’t think of Steve falling without thinking of Coney Island. One memory has poisoned the other somehow. Bucky’s pulled away from it when Loki’s hand wraps around the back of Bucky’s neck. When Bucky looks at him, the Asgardian’s eyes are travelling down Bucky’s body with open desire.

“I should be leaving,” Loki murmurs. “Thor will suspect I am planning to overthrow him.”

“Are you?” Bucky asks.

Loki smiles. “Only when I’m bored.”

“He’s all you have left. He loves you,” Bucky says. “How about you _not_ screw it up?”

Loki rolls his eyes and begins to pull away. Bucky grabs his wrist and pulls him back. “Hey. I didn’t say we were done.”

“Pushy.” Loki arches a brow. Then he smiles and says, “I like it.”

*

“What's with you?” Natasha asks, kicking Bucky square in the stomach.

Bucky grimaces, rubbing his belly. “Just a little off my game today, it's nothing.”

“A little?” Sam comments from where he's sitting by the wall, his eyes on the screen of his phone. “Man, she's been wiping the floor with you for the last ten minutes. You're in a totally different state to the game.”

Bucky throws a scowl in Sam's direction. “So I'm a little distracted.”

“By what?” Nat asks.

Sam lowers his phone, eyeing Bucky. “He won’t say.”

“Ohhh,” Nat remarks. “What d’you do?”

Bucky gives her a look. “Bad night of sleep. Just drop it, will you? How’s about I take you both out to lunch and you can stop asking me questions?”

Sam gets up, stretching with a little noise of satisfaction. “Can’t. Plans.”

“What kind of plans?” Bucky asks.

Nat has a cheeky smile on her face. “Sam’s seeing an old neighbour of yours.”

“The comic book guy?” Bucky says with a scowl.

“ _No_ ,” Nat says with an incredulous expression. “Sharon Carter.”

Bucky looks at Sam, eyes widening a little. “When did this happen?”

“Nope. _This_ ,” Sam says, making a circular gesture in Nat and Bucky’s direction, “is not happening. It’s just lunch. Two adults, eating food, having some polite conversation, and maybe a second kiss.”

“What?” Nat says, jumping to her feet, but Sam is already walking away, a huge grin on his face. Bucky can’t help but laugh, watching him stride up the stairs. When he’s gone, Nat shakes her head in disbelief. “He kept that quiet.”

“He’s smart,” Bucky says, grinning at her. “Tony’s not beyond putting romantic entanglements as any other business on briefing agendas.”

She nods in agreement before giving him a sly look. “What about you? Any romantic entanglements we don’t know about?”

“Nope,” Bucky says. “Besides, I’m not looking. Never was the settling down type.”

“Old dog,” Nat says, her gaze openly trying to get a read on him. Her expression turns soft and she says, “You should be with someone.”

“I’ve got you. I’ve got Sam,” Bucky says. “Tony, Thor, Clint, Bruce. I’ve got everyone I need.”

“Not everyone,” Nat says knowingly. She steps towards him, putting her arms around his middle. Bucky smiles, putting an arm around her. “You’re a catch, Barnes, that’s all I’m saying. Someone should be getting a piece of this.”

Bucky pulls her along as he heads to the stairs, telling her, “You don’t need to worry about me."

*

Bucky’s fists bunch up the bedsheets as his hips begin to stutter. He thrusts one last time, provoking a loud surprised cry of pleasure. His muscles go rigid, his whole body tensing, and he comes with a strangled gasp.

“Jesus,” he mutters, falling to the side and rolling onto his back, running a sweaty hand through his damp hair.

He turns his head to silently view the lithe body he’s been pummelling, Loki’s face looking pinked, an all too satisfied smile on his face, his hair looking better in disarray than it ever looks in control. Loki turns towards Bucky, crawling on top as he murmurs, “My turn.”

Bucky smiles lazily. “Do your worst.”

Loki’s worst is long drawn out indulgent kisses and a lazy thrusting against Bucky’s cock, until he’s coaxed back to life. A god and a super-soldier, Bucky thinks, that’s never going to be just a roll in the hay. His mouth on Loki’s mouth, Bucky wraps an arm around his waist and rolls him onto his back, one hand on Loki’s thigh, coaxing his leg up over Bucky’s hip.

Loki laughs, a laugh that seems the most genuine Bucky’s ever heard from the God of Mischief. “Now that’s just greedy.”

“S’not greedy,” Bucky gasps as their cocks touch, Loki’s thighs tightening around Bucky. “Making it good for you.”

“Your generosity knows no - ah! _Oh_ ,” Loki says, biting his bottom lip, eyelids drooping as Bucky starts moving his hips. Loki arches back, pressing his head into the pillows, mouth falling shut, unable to make no other sound but, “Mmmmm.”

Bucky presses in close to Loki, one hand still gripping Loki’s thigh, his mouth soundlessly opening against the dip of the Asgardian’s throat, feeling it with his mouth, tasting it with his tongue. Loki’s hand lands heavily against the back of Bucky’s skull, fingers moving through strands of hair. Bucky’s fully hard again, and by the feel of things, Loki doesn’t have far to go. Bucky’s head is yanked back, his hair in the grip of Loki’s hand. They look at each other for a moment through a fog of arousal, Loki looking drunk. Bucky goes along with the tug on his hair until their mouths slot against each other, his tongue crushing itself against Loki’s.

Loki makes a sound like surprise, pain and objection rolled into one, before he comes with a hard jolt against Bucky, splattering upwards over Bucky’s and his own stomach. It sends a little spike of heat right through him, the way Loki looks absolutely unfocused, shifting heavily against the sheets. The sight of him undone makes Bucky repay the favour and come across Loki who turns his head with some kind of intuition, missing being splashed on his cheek. Bucky drops right there on top of Loki, closing his eyes and enjoying the intense moment of calm and silence. If only it could last a little longer, that silent space in his head which comes from being too tired and too satiated to think.

“Do you mind?” Loki says, prodding Bucky in the side with a finger. “I’d rather not lie in my own mess.”

Bucky rolls off to the side, peering at Loki who thinks nothing of using Bucky’s bedsheet to wipe himself clean. Bucky can’t help but mutter, “You don’t mind making it.”

Loki gives him a filthy look. Bucky smirks and reaches for the bedside drawer for his box of smokes, shaking one out. He puts it in his mouth and reaches around for his lighter, before finally lighting it and rolling onto his back with a satisfied sigh. Loki throws the crumpled sheet at Bucky’s stomach, nodding at him and Bucky rolls his eyes, giving himself a quick wipe, sacred cigarette never leaving his lips.

By the time Bucky’s thrown the sheet to the side, Loki has made himself comfortable, draping part of blue blanket over himself just to cover his modesty. It makes Bucky frown and then smile. Loki is hardly the modest type. Bucky nods to the blanket. “Do you mind?”

“Help yourself,” Loki says full of post-coital unhelpfulness.

Bucky leans to the side and grabs a corner of the blanket, pulling it waist high, one leg happy to be excluded from the scratchy warmth. He hooks one arm under his head, the hand of his other arm contentedly lying on his chest, intermittently extracting the cigarette from between his lips. Next to him, Loki shifts with a sigh and Bucky watches him turning onto his front, one hand sneaking under the pillow as his eyes flutter shut. He looks harmless and completely inoffensive. But he’s not, is he? He is far from.

“Why did you do it?” Bucky murmurs around his cigarette. Loki opens his eyes, blinking at Bucky in question, a sullen downturn to his mouth. “All that shit in New York.”

Loki sighs and closes his eyes, looking only partially annoyed by the question. “There is more at play in the universe than you would understand.”

“Well, I’ve got the time if you’ve got the patience,” Bucky says.

“Do you now?” Loki says with an annoyed twist to his mouth. Then he looks at Bucky with a mischievous look. He rears up the top half of his body like a pale-skinned snake, slow and smooth, before shifting towards Bucky.

Bucky frowns as Loki touches the tip of the cigarette dangling between Bucky’s lips. There’s a hiss of heat being extinguished and ice touching Bucky’s mouth. The surprise makes him open it, letting the the icicle drop. Loki murmurs leans in, cupping Bucky’s face, pressing his mouth against Bucky’s in a heated kiss, whiting out his mind in the same moment.

The colour of Loki’s memories is different to Bucky’s. There’s a white mist across all of them, their cosmic purples, blues and pinks not as bright as they should be. The memories stretch out in every direction. He’s looking up at Thor who is holding a staff, the other end in Loki’s hand. He’s jolted by the realisation that Loki is choosing to fall into blackness, snatched out of space, skin burned from too much drifting aimlessly. He’s on his knees looking up at colossal figure. _Who is this pitiful creature? He says he’s the King of Asgard. Odin lives - he lies. Ha - I think you’ll find Odin is the real liar. Kill him. Wait! I...I am a son of Odin - I can be of use to you. Bring me my sceptre. Wait...what is this? What are you doing?_ A blinding light fills Bucky’s head and in it a deep voice intones _you have heart Asgardian, and you know of Midgard, so go, bring me the Tesseract, and I will make you a king_. The light is not just light. It’s as if someone has Loki’s mind and heart held in a tight vice. The pain of it runs through his whole body. It mingles with his magic and makes it scream. _Take this sceptre - you see what the mind stone can do._ When he’s released from the grip of the light, he falls to his knees, shaking and shuddering, his stomach in his mouth. _Remember, Asgardian, fail at your task and I will show you what true pain is._

Bucky is spat from the memory gasping, his lungs so hell bent on breathing in, they’ve forgotten how to breathe out. Bucky lurches away from Loki, leaning over the bed panting. “What the hell…?”

“You did ask,” Loki replies. Bucky turns to see Loki shifting to lie down, an elbow propping him up. “Now you have seen. Does it help you to loathe yourself a little less for having me in your bed?”

There’s a fading whisper in Bucky’s mind: _you think you know pain._ “Were they in your head the whole time?”

“No,” Loki says. “They simply had free passage through it as long as I had the sceptre.”

“Is that what it was like inside Selvig and Clint’s heads?” Bucky asks.

“Not quite,” Loki says after a long pause. “They had no control. I had at least an illusion of it.”

Bucky is quiet for a while, realising he’s initiated the universe’s worst round of pillow talk. But then he has to ask, “Who’s Thanos, and why does he want the Tesseract so bad?”

“I’ve told you before of the infinity stones, yes? He wanted the stone inside it, and he wanted to collect all six, however that plan has gone awry. The aether is gone. The mind stone from the sceptre is gone. And the space stone from the Tesseract was lost to the same fire that consumed Asgard. That leaves an incomplete set,” Loki says with a satisfied smile. “Thanos was quite adamant about having all six. Not sure what he’ll do with three, if he finds them.”

Bucky can’t say he’s sorry the Tesseract is gone. The cube should have been thrown into a volcano a long time ago. “You know, I find it hard to believe you didn’t just grab the Tesseract for yourself.”

Loki grins. “That’s what I like about you, James. You’re awfully astute. I had every intention of taking it. But, as I reached for it, I noticed in the glow of the eternal flame of Asgard, this.”

Loki holds up his hand and Bucky can see crackling red energy dancing about Loki’s fingers. “What is it?”

“The taint of the aether,” Loki says, frowning at the red sparks. “I reached out and touched the Tesseract, and I felt a vice-like grip around my throat, as if someone was squeezing the air out of my body. When I pulled away, that feeling vanished. I know a sign when I see one. I left it to perish with the rest of Asgard.”

Bucky sighs, shaking his head. “You ever think about an easier life?”

Loki frowns, his eyes sliding in thought towards the open window. He grins, waving a hand in his own direction with a flourish, fine clothes rippling into existence, his hair instantly tamed. Loki rolls a little closer, pressing a kiss against Bucky’s mouth, murmuring. “Now what’s the fun in that?”

Loki climbs over Bucky, standing up and smoothing down his clothes as Bucky shifts to sit against the pillows, legs drawn up. The grey noise is beginning to knock at the door of his mind, the momentary reprieve over.

“I spoke to Heimdall about your friend. Unfortunately our once gatekeeper can’t see the way he used without the power of Asgard, or he could send you straight to your...lost love.” Bucky rolls his eyes, which only makes Loki grin. “Of course, should I stumble upon him, I’ll be sure to deliver him into your hands.”

“Why?” Bucky asks, smiling a little, amused by Loki who professes his lack of sentiment every chance he gets.

“I do what I want,” Loki shrugs and says. “ _That_ is my _deal_.”

Loki brings up a hand and snaps his fingers. He doesn’t disappear into a puff of smoke, fade away, or get picked up a bright light. It just seems as if he was never here to begin with, gone between one blink and the next. If it wasn’t for lingering smell of sex, the state of the bedsheets, Bucky might even think he imagined it all. Bucky gets up from his bed, picking up discarded boxers, jeans, and hooded sweatshirt, taking them into the bathroom with him.

He takes a long hot shower, his skin remembering enough of Loki’s touches to bring about arousal. He turns the water from hot to cold, stepping out when he begins to shiver. As he dresses, he tries not to look at the mirror, or the patches of red left on his skin by Loki’s inquisitive mouth. He doesn’t want to think about it. It’s a stupid series of mistakes that’s going to blow up in his face. He steps out of the bathroom, towelling his hair only to drop the towel at the sight of the figure at the other end of his apartment. There he is standing before the kitchen counter, turning the pages of a book in which Bucky has documented his failure to find Steve.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Bucky says, a strange childish despair threatening to constrict his vocal cords. “Did you know?”

“Yes.” Steve’s voice shakes Bucky to the core. That’s his voice, and he’s really here. “I know.”

Bucky takes a step forward and Steve swiftly turns around. He’s dressed in black: boots, jeans, sweater, jacket, cap, gloves. He’s grown a beard and Bucky’s never seen him like this. The beard makes him look a little like his father, though, he has his mother's eyes and it's enough to not make him look as severe as his old man .

“You were at Peggy’s funeral,” Bucky says.

Steve’s frowning, looking lost, his gaze travelling the apartment before settling on Bucky. “I saw you there.”

“Why did you run?” Bucky asks. He sounds pathetic to his own ears when he asks, “Don’t you remember me?”

Steve’s face shifts into fearful confusion. “No.”

“Then why are you here?” Bucky asks. “If you don’t remember me, what are you doing here?”

Steve’s frowning, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

“Let me help you with that,” Loki says, out of sight.

Bucky watches Steve twist towards the sound of Loki’s voice, his metal arm shooting out to grab thin air which ripples into the Asgardian himself. Loki ducks a blow, and strikes Steve hard in the ribs as Bucky runs across the apartment, leaping over a couch. Loki and Steve exchange a series of blows, until finally Loki slides away from Steve's attempt to grab him and takes advantage of Steve pitching forward to come up behind him and cup the front of Steve's head.

“Loki!” Bucky shouts as Steve straightens and goes rigid, his mouth opening in a gasp, eyes wide, their blues looking pale under the lights, Loki holding him from behind.

Bucky stops short of both of them, seeing a crackle of red snaking between Loki’s fingers before he pulls away with a shocked look on his face, as if he’s been burned. Steve falls, Bucky darting to catch him and slowly lower him to the ground. Steve’s a dead weight in his lap, half of his body sprawled on the floor. Bucky looks at Loki, his heart pounding in his chest. Loki however is staring at Steve, backing away from the scene.

He swallows and smiles shakily, roughly telling Bucky, “You’re welcome.”

In the blink of an eye he’s gone and Steve is stirring, the first word on his lips, a confused and quiet, “Bucky?”


	12. Chapter 12

Reality has tripped into one of Bucky’s recurring nightmares where he kneels in snow holding Steve’s broken body, always too late to save him. Sometimes his hands move across the blue of the Captain America uniform, tainted by blood. Sometimes, his hands hover lightly over the skin and bones of a body that knew too many ailments for a short life. Bucky’s vision swims, his head filled with cotton. He thinks he can see snow the falling, feel it landing on his skin, see it settling on Steve’s face.

“Bucky?” Bucky blinks furiously, snapped back into the present. He frowns at Steve whose gaze looks cloudy and confused. Bucky swallows, mouth stuck, mind devoid of words. Finally he manages to croak, “Steve.”

At the sound of his name, Steve tenses in Bucky’s hold before all but leaps away, stumbling to his feet. Steve looks like a spooked animal, liable to bolt at the first sign of danger. Bucky gets to his feet nice and slow, hands held up in a sort of surrender.

“Steve?” Bucky prods. Steve stares at him, a blank and wide-eyed look on his face. “Come on, man. Give me something here.”

Steve looks around the apartment, stumbling back a little. His gaze returns to Bucky, his eyes travelling up and down before stilling on Bucky’s face, forehead creasing into a frown. Something shifts in his eyes, something that looks a little like recognition. Bucky edges forward a little and hears the shift of metal plates, opening his mouth to coax Steve into saying something. Only Steve beats him to it.

“I remember.” Bucky stops moving. The words out, Steve seems a little brittle. “I remember everything.”

“What’s everything?” Bucky asks quietly.

“The war. The experiment. Hydra. All of it,” Steve says with a scowl. He tilts his head as if he’s watching something right there before him. His mouth twitches a little, eyes looking bright “Ma giving you an earful for taking me to Coney Island. You remember that, Buck? I remember it like it was yesterday...”

Bucky doesn’t give a shit if he gets a metal fist in the face for it and darts across the space between them, meeting Steve chest to chest, his arms slipping all the way around Steve and pulling him close, fingers gripping the fabric of Steve’s jacket, his face pressing into a hard unyielding shoulder. There’s so much relief coursing through Bucky’s body he thinks he might collapse. Steve just hangs in his grasp, unmoving and heavy for a long time, until Bucky feels the slow rise of his arms softly returning the hug.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says roughly. He hears a wet gasp and pulls back to see pink watery eyes. Bucky takes him by the shoulders, his hands squeezing tight. “It’s okay. I got you.”

Steve shakes his head, stumbles back and falls to his knees, before clumsily tumbling back onto his behind. Slowly drawing up his legs, he rests his elbows on his knees and hides his face in his hands, shoulders shuddering ever so slightly, whilst Bucky crouches by his side, afraid to touch or speak.

“I couldn’t stop them...the things I did...” Steve says, thick muffled words interrupted by a sob. “I couldn’t stop any of it.”

Bucky swallows, his throat painfully constricting. He reaches out and squeezes Steve’s shoulder, prompting him to look up from his hands. Steve stares at Bucky for so long that it begins to unnerve Bucky, makes his emotions rush to the surface, threatening an earthquake as grief and elation shift painfully under his ribs.

“You stopped them when you pulled me out of the river, right?” he says quietly. “You stopped them the second you walked away from Hydra. You’re stopping them right now, by being here.”

Steve shakes his head, blinking and causing a trickle of tears. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I know enough,” Bucky says. Steve frowns at him, looking uncertain. Bucky stands up, holding out a hand for Steve. “And I know you.”

Steve blinks at the proffered hand, jaw working, and eyes bright. After a moment, he reaches out for Bucky’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled up from the ground and guided to the couch, where Bucky sits him down.

Steve grimaces, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “Feel like there’s a carnival in my head.”

Bucky moves to arrange some cushions at the head of the couch, waiting with an expectant look on his face for Steve to lie down. Steve just keeps watching Bucky with a strange sad look. Quietly, Bucky says, “It’s okay. It’ll be just like old times.”

Steve swallows, his as his gaze turns miserably to the cushions, Bucky waiting. They’ve done this before, an age ago, when Steve was smaller, but no less stubborn. Steve moves slowly, shifting until he’s lying down, curled on his side.

“Want your boots off?” Bucky asks gently. Steve shakes his head. Bucky doesn’t press the matter - he’d keep his boots on too. He goes to sit on the coffee table, Steve’s bright gaze on him the whole time. “It’s okay. I’ll be right here.”

Steve seems to completely tune out, his gaze becoming fixed and vacant. It ties Bucky’s stomach in knots, frustration and anger threatening to crawl its way out of his throat. But then there’s a drowsy blink, followed by a heavier one, followed by one final blink still resisting sleep, before Steve finally succumbs and his eyes shut completely.

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, his hand clamping tightly over his own mouth. Fearing a storm gathering traction inside his lungs, Bucky takes a breath, sniffing back the wetness clogging his nose, and opens his eyes, lips resolutely clamped together. Steve looks so tired even as he sleeps, half of his face buried into the cushion. Bucky reaches out to brush a strand of hair back from Steve’s forehead and then stops himself, old guilt catching his hand, a memory flashing in front of his eyes like a bad omen.

There was a brief dreamlike period between Steve liberating Bucky from Zola’s prison to him falling away into a snowy abyss. For a day or two Bucky wasn’t sure if he was still on Zola’s table, being made to believe in this Steve Rogers who was taller and wider than Bucky. He’d watch Steve for a sign of deceit. But there was no denying that underneath all that muscle and height was that stubborn kid Bucky had known his entire life. Everytime he smiled and said ‘Buck’, there was no denying that Captain America was his Steve.

In the warm light of a dim bulb, Bucky had crouched down next to a cot where Steve slept, catching a few minutes of rest as was his new way. Bucky had watched him closely, his eyes tracing Steve’s features, his mouth, his nose, his brow. All that was left of that smaller Steve was concealed about his face and a long strand of hair that fell onto his forehead. Bucky swallowed, reaching out and gently pushing it away, drawn to the shadow of Steve’s eyelashes across his cheeks. His hand had been shaking because he had so desperately wanted to touch Steve’s face.

Footsteps stopping short and sudden made him still and Bucky slowly looked to the side, grim and ready to challenge whoever had intruded on the moment. Peggy stood there, her mouth slightly open, her eyes a little wide as she stared at Bucky. Bucky sighed, cracking his neck to the side and standing up, before walking out of the tiny quarters and into the concrete corridor, waiting for the fallout. She hadn’t followed him out immediately. She’d made him wait, walking out slowly a few minutes later, looking a little angry, a little confused.

“Whatever it is you think you saw-” Bucky had begun cockily.

“I’m not a fool,” Peggy cut him off, scowling at him, before her eyes softened just a little as she murmured, “I saw the look on your face. Are you...are you in love with him?”

Bucky laughed. “Look around you. everyone loves him.”

“Yes,” she said. “But they’re not _in_ love with him.”

“You could have fooled me,” Bucky said, still obstinately cocky.

There was a patient smile on her face and Bucky realised she’d probably dealt with enough jerks that one more was unlikely to dent her armour. She asked him again, sounding curious and careful, “Barnes. Are you in love with him?”

That question had made him so angry. He had wanted to say something cruel, something cutting. He had wanted to tell her that maybe everyone else gave a damn about what some broad who looked good in a red dress thought, but not him. That she had _nothing_ he was interested in. But wasn’t that the biggest lie? One look at Steve’s eyes when Peggy was around told Bucky she had what mattered most to Bucky. She had Steve. She had him in a way that Steve could never be Bucky’s.

He gave her a brittle smile. “You tell anyone, and I’ll deny it.”

Peggy looked regretful, her mouth opened to say something, and then she thought better of it, stopping, turning to look at the door to the small room where Steve continued to sleep.

When she looked back at Bucky, Peggy seemed sad, regretful. There was far too much sympathy in her eyes, and it hurt way more than a punch to the face ever would. She reached out towards his arm. “Barnes-”

“Please don’t,” Bucky said quietly, shaking his head. He looked around the empty corridor. They were doors down from a room where another Hydra takedown was in the works. Someone would come out, and they would know. Somehow people always knew.

She drew back her hand. He thought she looked guilt-ridden, which had made him want to laugh. What the hell did she have to feel guilty about? Or maybe it was pity. Pity because of his wrongness, pity because of his queerness. The look had made him want to turn and run.

“We both love him,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you think that might be a good basis for a friendship? It seems sensible that the two people he manages to infuriate the most ought to be friends with each other."

Bucky mustered a smile and tentatively held out his hand. Peggy looked down at the outstretched hand and put hers over it, squeezing it before pushing it aside and stepping forward to put her arms around him. Bucky jolted from the surprise of it, staring ahead, his arms raised, hands unsure of what to do before they slowly returned the hug and he was holding Peggy. After a moment, she pulled back. He watched her straighten up, smooth down her clothes and click back into Agent Carter.

She nodded at him and said, “Well, we’re about to get started. Better wake him up. I’ll see you both in there.”

With that, she walked away, shoulders squared and head held up high as usual. He turned in her direction and just watched her for a moment, before calling out, “Carter.”

Peggy stopped and slowly turned to look in Bucky’s direction. “What?”

“He’s crazy about you,” Bucky said, a confession to himself, an admission to her. “In case you hadn’t already figured it out.”

A soft smile appeared on her face, and he could see her gaze brighten the way only love was able to light up someone’s eyes. She nodded and turned back around, carrying on to the operation room, while Bucky tried to hate her with all the might in the world and failed. Bucky had gone back to wake Steve, watching him sleep for just another moment. Steve looks so different now. His hair is long and lank, his beard dark and thick. His eyes look hollow as he sleeps on heavily.

Bucky remembers all the times Loki’s been in his mind, the lethargy, the awful unanchored feeling afterwards. There was a grief from being examined so closely, having such thin layers peeled back. Being exposed. _I’ve done this to him._ Bucky eyes Steve, his mind wandering to the file Nat gave him, every page and every image burned into his brain. All the things Hydra did to Steve. He can’t stop the images from flicking through his head, of Steve strapped down, made immobile. The way they tried to break him, to tame him, like some kind of animal.

_Everything._

What was everything? Growing up sick? The bullies? The way his mother never learned to keep quiet, never learned to duck a blow from his father? The endless days and nights of sickliness? Sweating if not shivering, shivering if not sweating? Staying up too late, talking too loudly when they should have been sleeping, nudging and bumping, knees and elbows, trying to make each other laugh?

Is there more from before or after Hydra? Does he remember running and getting out of breath, scaring the shit out of Bucky, and then laughing? Or just running with purpose, to kill? Does he remember talking nonsense with a sleepy smile, both of them drunk, or being held down, pumped full of drugs to make him docile? Are there enough good memories to fight all the bad?

A tear travels from the corner of Steve’s eye and across Steve’s nose, hanging to the bridge until gravity drags it down. Steve is soundlessly sleeping, but not enough for grief to be kept at bay. Bucky slips onto the ground, shifting to lean against the trunk of the coffee table, keeping close to the couch in case Steve needs him, watching him closely.

 _Now what?_ Bucky asks himself.

He can see Peggy, imagine her so clearly, sitting down on the arm of the couch, tilting slightly towards Steve, legs crossed elegantly. He can see her reaching out and doing what Bucky is too afraid to do, easing Steve’s troubled sleep.

 _You do what you can_ , says the version of her that lives on in his mind.

 _Because that’s easy_. He can imagine her smile. Bucky would smile with her. He sighs and thinks, _wish you were still here._

He closes his eyes, tries to think of happier times, but throughout the night his mind wanders up the path that has brought him to this future. He thinks of sitting on the floor of a small room and leaning against an empty cot, Steve’s shield on his left, and on his right a disappointing bottle of bourbon. He feels cold and hollow, like someone’s taken a chunk of him out, using his heart as the handle to pull it out. He hears the door opening and flinches at the sound of footsteps, looking up to see Peggy standing over him, her expression unreadable. He wonders if she’s angry with him. She should be. Her gaze flicks from Bucky to the shield, her eyes growing ever brighter. He follows her gaze, and stares at the shield. The star at its centre is blurry bright.

“I’m going after Schmidt,” Bucky says, his voice sounding rusty.

“Take the shield,” Peggy tells him, “and make sure it’s the last thing he sees.”

The door opens, with a metallic scraping sound, and a cool gust of air grabs Bucky’s attention. He turns his head and stares at Steve standing by the door, a sombre expression on his face. For a moment Bucky can’t separate reality from dreaming, and then it becomes clear that he is awake and Steve is leaving. Bucky stands up, looking at Steve, a twisting feeling in his gut, Steve looks back at Bucky with a strange calm look on his face.

Bucky nods at him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Steve says, his voice a little deeper, a little less coloured by confusion.

“You’re leaving.” Steve nods. There’s no confusion in his eyes, not even a glimmer. It’s been replaced by an awful clarity. “You don’t have to. There’s space here.”

Steve smiles then and Bucky thinks his heart might just crack in half. It’s a real smile, something that reaches Steve’s eyes. “I know. It’s just something I have to do. For now.”

Bucky swallows, nodding. “Well...I’m here. If you need me.”

Another small smile as Steve nods and pushes open the door. “I know that too.”

A final look and Steve’s gone. Bucky questions himself whether he ought to follow, but then he remembers the real Steve Rogers does what he wants. Hadn’t that always been part of the attraction, a skinny kid who looked like he could get knocked down by a strong breeze, balling up his fists to guys twice his size?

Bucky shakes his head, swallowing down a sizeable amount of disappointment as he murmurs, “Punk.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblin over here](http://dvswraatins.tumblr.com/tagged/dvswraatins), and thinking about **Switched** over [here](http://dvswraatins.tumblr.com/tagged/switched)


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